Centrum was thrilled to welcome Wynton Marsalis as our 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 Marsalis and featuring classical pianist, Cecile Licad, performed to a silent film, Louis. Following the film, Marsalis was joined on stage by jazz composer and bassist, John Clayton, who curated a conversation with Wynton about his eminent career, lifelong dedication to arts education, and the multi-generational legacies their two families share.