Don Marshall and Ricky Sebastian Receive Awards from OffBeat Magazine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

NEW ORLEANS (January 9, 2024) – The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation is proud to announce that Don Marshall and Ricky Sebastian will be honored by OffBeat Magazine. Marshall is set to receive the 2023 Best of the Beat Lifetime Achievement Award in Music Business, while Sebastian will be presented with the Best of the Beat Lifetime Achievement Award in Music Education. These awards recognize their remarkable contributions and enduring legacy in their respective fields.

For over two decades, Marshall has been at the helm of the Foundation as Executive Director, steering it towards new heights. Sebastian, an acclaimed master percussionist, actively imparts his profound knowledge and skills to students across the greater New Orleans region as an instructor at the Foundation’s Don “Moose” Jamison Heritage School of Music. 

The Foundation celebrates their achievements and is honored to have an incredible staff contributing to the perpetuation and enrichment of the musical heritage of New Orleans.

This year, the Best of the Beat Music Awards will be held on Wednesday, January 24, 2024, at Tipitina’s, 501 Napoleon Avenue, from 6pm to 11pm. Music includes a Tribute to David R. Batiste, Sr. featuring his band The Gladiators + Leo Nocentelli and Special Guests, Loose Cattle, Erica Falls, the Rumble and more. 

OffBeat’s Best of The Beat Music Awards was created to honor local musicians for their contributions to New Orleans and Louisiana music and culture. Voting is still underway. 

The Best of The Beat Music Awards is now a program of the OffBeat Music and Cultural Arts Foundation (OMACAF), a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to educate and enlighten the public on local music and culture and be a means to help support the music and cultural arts community through education and economic opportunities.

OMCAF’s mission statement is to:
Educate the public about local and regional music and cultural arts. Give professional working opportunities to the music and cultural arts community. This would be accomplished via researching, gathering, compiling, organizing, disseminating, writing, communicating and promoting information on the artistic and business aspects of music and entertainment industries and associated cultural, educational and business activities and achievements.

About the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation:

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation is the nonprofit that owns the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell. The foundation uses the proceeds from Jazz Fest, and other raised funds, for year-round programs in education, economic development and cultural enrichment. For more on what we do, please visit us online at www.jazzandheritage.org

Image Credits: Don Marshall at the George and Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center. Photograph © 2024 OffBeat/Noé Cugny and Ricky Sebastian instructing students at the Don “Moose” Jamison Heritage School of Music in 2023, photographed by Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee.