Our History

Music for Tomorrow (MFT) is the product of discussions among individuals involved with the mayor’s Bring New Orleans Back Committee on Culture, chaired by jazz-legend Wynton Marsalis and prominent New Orleans business leaders. The Committee, aided by MFT co-founders Kabir Sehgal and Brent Reidy, prepared a report for the United States Congress that showed the need to support New Orleans culture. The document demonstrated the importance of culture to New Orleans—one of the state’s biggest employers, with over 15,000 jobs and a $300 million economic impact per year—and suggested ways appropriations could be spent to help New Orleans recover its cultural economy.

The MFT founders realized that just government support was not going to be enough to save New Orleans’ music and planned a concert to raise money for this cause. MFT was officially founded on September 18, 2006 with a gala fundraiser in New Orleans. The event was a runaway success. The evening’s host, actor Jude Law, was greeted by a standing ovation. Actress Patricia Clarkson, actor James Gandolfini, and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu also attended the show. In less than two months, MFT raised over $130,000 of which $25,000 was donated towards the construction of the National Jazz Center. Where Y’at, a popular local newspaper, has called MFT “the best thing to happen for New Orleans in a while.”

At the time considered a one-time fundraising event, the parties involved, including Jude Law and preeminent historian Douglas Brinkley, took the success of the concert as a cue to begin a lifetime commitment to the MFT vision. MFT incorporated and was recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. In 2006, MFT began to host a number of smaller events – including major donor receptions and intimate performances (dubbed “salons”) – that gave away grants to artists that bear the weight of New Orleans’ cultural legacy.

In late 2008 and 2009, MFT entered an organizational growth period as it worked towards exciting plans with a grand vision. In this recent period, prominent business leaders, artists, and thinkers have come to MFT to help the group safeguard jazz. This new phase for MFT is marked with a focus on growing an international jazz audience through MFT programs and social media so that jazz has an increasing audience to support its musicians. MFT believes it can help invigorate jazz’s cultural economy by providing a set of solutions for jazz musicians rather than a crutch for performers in need.