Friday Nights at NOMA offers an exciting lineup of programs on select dates in 2019: live music, movies, children’s activities, and more. Regular admission prices apply—NOMA members are FREE—but there is no extra charge for programs or films. All galleries, the Museum Shop, and Café NOMA remain open till 9 pm.

• 5 – 8 pm: Art on the Spot family activity table
• 5:30 – 8:30 pm: Music by Patrice Fisher and ARPA with Ecos Latinos
• 6 pm: Keynote speech by Jeremy A. Sobloff of the Santa Fe Institute titled “Is ‘Collapse’ a Useful Term in Understanding Pre-Columbian Maya History?”

ABOUT PATRICE FISHER AND ARPA AND ECOS LATINOS

Growing up in the musical milieu of New Orleans, local harpist Patrice Fisher was surrounded by the sounds of jazz from every angle. She admits playing the harp felt natural to her, but she wanted to incorporate a mixture into her style of music. She is joined by the Latin jazz musicians of Arpa in concert at NOMA. Fisher is a graduate of Tulane University, as well as the Wolf Trap Academy for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. and the Creative Music Studio Jazz School in New York. She has recorded 14 albums of original music and has performed at such international music festivals as the Cancun Jazz Festival in Mexico, the Jambalaya Jazz Festival in Ilhabela, Brazil, and the Festi Jazz in La Paz, Bolivia, as well as a concert with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Sergipe in Aracaju, Brazil. Fisher will be joined by the band ARPA, consisting of Fran Comiskey on piano,  Orlando Solorzano on percussion, Robert King on bass, and Carlos Valladares on cajón.

In addition, Ecos Latinos will present Omar Ramirez, a trumpet player from Puerto Rico who graduated from Loyola University College of Music and the University of New Orleans; Roberto Moreira, a guitarist and composer from Honduras, who plays rhythm and blues and Latin music with some of the most notable bands in New Orleans; and Roberto Perez, a piano player born in Cucuta, Colombia, who studied at the conservatory of Music of Colombia. Perez brings the Afro-Colombian jazz fusion through his music to all audiences, and he has toured Europe, the US, and Latin America.

ABOUT THE TULANE MAYA SYMPOSIUM AND JEREMY A. SOBLOFF

The sixteenth annual Maya Symposium, themed “The Center Could Not Hold: The Ancient Maya and Collapse,” is a collaboration of Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and Mexican Consulate in New Orleans. Scholars gather to share research and NOMA hosts the keynote address, to be delivered by Jeremy A. Sobloff,

The term “collapse” has, in recent years, become quite controversial in studies of Maya civilization, and there is good reason to question the utility of this loaded word going forward. Jeremy Sobloff’s keynote talk will focus on understandings of cultural processes in the late 8th and 9th centuries and environmental events in the Maya Lowlands that culminated in what has often been seen as a political collapse. Moreover, his talk will examine whether such understanding can help illuminate comparable trends at other times in Maya history and in other complex societies in general.

Sobloff is an External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute and past President of the Institute (2009-2015). He also is Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to the Santa Fe Institute, he taught at Harvard University, the University of Utah, the University of New Mexico (where he was Chair of the Department), the University of Pittsburgh (where he also was Chair), and the University of Pennsylvania (where he was the Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum from 1994-2004). He also was an Overseas Visiting Fellow at St. John’s College, Cambridge, England. His principal scholarly interests include: ancient Maya civilization, pre-industrial urbanism, settlement pattern studies, archaeological theory and method, the history of archaeology, and the relevance of archaeology in the modern world. Over the past forty years, he has undertaken archaeological field research in both Mexico and Guatemala.

Friday Nights at NOMA is supported in part by grant funds from the Azby Fund; Ruby K. Worner Charitable Trust; New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation; and the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council.