Summer ragtime festival survives leadership rift
Columbia Daily Tribune
Mary T. NguyenThe Blind Boone Ragtime Festival will go on despite what its founder calls "artistic differences" between her and staff members at KOPN-FM who helped organize and sponsor the annual three-day show.
Lucille Salerno, who created the event in 1991, said she has withdrawn from the community radio station as a volunteer host and submitted her resignation as the ragtime festival’s artistic director.
KOPN General Manager David Owens said tensions between Salerno and the station arose over commercial aspects of the summer festival.
Owens said a point of contention was asking Salerno to find additional sponsorship to supplement ticket sales.
Although staff members at the radio station wanted to see the festival become more popular and to broaden ragtime’s appeal to younger and new audiences, Salerno felt the integrity of the festival was being compromised.
"It had become business rather than pleasure," Salerno said. "I cannot stand the destruction of something real and beautiful."
Owens said the radio station has no plans to cancel the festival after Salerno’s resignation. Before her departure, Salerno had written a grant proposal to the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau, which approved a $15,000 grant to the radio station for the festival. Owens said board members sought to find a replacement for Salerno, who negotiated artist contracts and took on the festival "as her baby" for the past 15 years.
"It’s a confused situation," Owens said. "What we were hoping was that KOPN could guarantee its continuity. We wanted to build on Lucille’s work and keep it alive."
Salerno announced Tuesday that she had found $12,000 in private donations to cover upfront costs and allow the festival to continue without assistance from KOPN and the grant from the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. The donations will help Salerno put on "The Original Blind Boone Ragtime and Early Jazz Festival," to be held June 3 though 5 at the Missouri Theatre. Although Salerno is open to additional community sponsorship, she said, she has no intentions to include KOPN in this year’s event or in the future.
"It became kind of difficult to deal with staff," she said, "and I’m not sure if I’m interested in looking back, really."
Owens sees the dispute as more of a "power struggle." "She really sees this festival as her baby," he said of Salerno. "She’s unwilling to delegate anything because she feels it’s a concession of her power and authority."
The festival will include concerts and seminars focused solely on ragtime, which was born in Missouri, and its heritage. Artists planning to appear include Morten Gunnar Larsen, the Ophelia Ragtime Orchestra and stride artists Paula Asaro and Brian Holland.
The artists will be compensated for their appearance at the festival, Salerno said, but many have agreed to play for much less than their honorarium because of the festival’s reputation as a true celebration of the music.
"It’s not intended to be a big money-maker," Salerno said. "It’s an artistic event. Putting it on this way, the risk of making it more commercial than artistic is much less."
