The Atlanta Ragtime Band will perform in concert on Sunday May 3, 2026, as part of Big Canoe Chapel’s Music in the Mountain’s 2025-2026 Concert Series. The recital is at 4 pm at Big Canoe Chapel, 226 Wolfscratch Village Circle, Jasper GA.

Inspiration for the first concert of the then titled “Atlanta Musicians Band,” conducted by Eric Alexander, occurred during the first months of the Covid-19 lockdown. Literal curiosity about what music had been written about "anything"; Atlanta became a concert. The joy in discovering for that concert a foxtrot/two-step march written by the composer of Lift Every Voice and Sing, J. Rosamond Johnson, spurred a desire to arrange more concerts to explore the forgotten gems of the ragtime age. The renamed
“Atlanta Ragtime Band,” conducted by Dr. Tom Gibson have since performed concerts that celebrated Black History Month, and Women's History Month with music from the era by those under-represented composers, as well as celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month with all standards and favorites of the early jazz era. As much fun for the players to play, the real joy is in the faces of the audience as they hear the cheerful, playful, and entertaining music of the Ragtime era as played by the Atlanta Ragtime Band.

Big Canoe Chapel’s concert might be considered “Ragtime 101,” in that exemplary compositions in the history of ragtime will be featured. Including works by Scott Joplin and various women composers of rags from the earliest days of the genre. Entering its third year, the Atlanta Ragtime Band has quickly established a dedicated following of fans with new ones added at every concert. Add impressive catalog of concert programs full of variety of styles, from jazz to marches and rags, and even music of the circus, the Atlanta Ragtime Band is becoming the preferred band in the region for their joyful, toe-tapping experiences! The band comprises some of Atlanta's finest professional musicians from the classical and jazz fields, all come together to celebrate the music created by the first generation of African-Americans born following Emancipation. This is a music that went to change the world forever, and these are stories deserving to be heard.