Centrum Benefit Gala and Dinner
May 27 ~ 2025 5:00pm – 9:00pm
Wynton Marsalis and featuring classical pianist Cecile Licad
Post-screening conversation with Wynton Marsalis and John Clayton
7:30 p.m. | Fort Worden Commons
Premiere Dessert Auction and Fund-a-Dream Paddle Raise with
emcee and auctioneer Matt Lorch
Centrum is thrilled to welcome Wynton Marsalis as its featured artist for the 2025 Benefit Concert & Gala Dinner. Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer, bandleader, and educator. A leading advocate of American culture, he is the first jazz artist to perform and compose across the full spectrum from of the artform–from its New Orleans roots to bebop and modern jazz. By creating and performing an expansive range of brilliant new music for quartets to big bands, chamber music ensembles to symphony orchestras, tap dance to ballet, Wynton has expanded the vocabulary for jazz and created a vital body of work that places him among the world’s finest musicians and composers.
At this special event, a 13-piece jazz orchestra led by Wynton Marsalis and featuring classical pianist, Cecile Licad, will perform to a silent film, LOUIS. A modern reimagining of early silent film, the movie is set in 1907 New Orleans where 6-year-old Louis navigates the colorful intricacies of life in the city and acquires his first cornet. Following the film, Marsalis will be joined on stage by jazz composer and bassist, John Clayton, who will curate a conversation with Wynton about his eminent career, lifelong dedication to arts education, and the multi-generational legacies their two families share. The post-concert dinner, catered by Planted, will feature a dessert auction and fund-a-dream paddle raise with auctioneer Matt Lorch.
Centrum’s Benefit Concert marks Marsalis’ first public appearance in the Pacific Northwest in 23 years without the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.
To reach the box office, patrons may call (360) 385-3102 x110