40th Anniversary Gala
November 8, 2026 at 2:00:00 PM
1 Open Square Way, Holyoke, MA 01040, USA
The Northampton Community Music Center will hold a 40th anniversary gala fundraiser featuring acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, who will take the stage for a 40-minute Q&A. Afterwards, longtime NCMC student AJ Strack will perform, and NCMC founder Bill Feinstein will speak on the significance of the Center’s 40-year commitment to community music. We invite you to join us in the historic celebration!
40 years ago, the Northampton Community Music Center as we know it was only a dream. Many of today's staff, faculty, and student body were only dreams themselves, and our building was then Northampton's abandoned South Street Elementary School. In the decades since, NCMC has helped thousands of dreams come true. We have awarded more than one million dollars in scholarships and taught more than 20,000 students, each leaving the center with music beating in their hearts. This fall marks our 40th academic year at the Music Center, and we are excited to celebrate this momentous occasion with our community, and harness support that will take us into another extraordinary decade! To kick off this special year in the life of NCMC, we have invited master storyteller Ken Burns to inspire us forward.
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for fifty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; Prohibition; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; The Vietnam War; Country Music; The U.S. and the Holocaust; The American Buffalo; Leonardo da Vinci; and, most recently, The American Revolution. Future film projects include Martin Luther King Jr., LBJ & the Great Society, Emancipation to Exodus, and CIA, among others. Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including seventeen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations. In September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In November of 2022, Ken was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.