Music

Due to Overwhelming Demand: CongoSonic Exhibition Extended!

The 17th Annual African American Composers’ Series: CongoSonic — Bantu Beats Across the Americas

The rhythms still resonate—and now, they’ll play on even longer. We’re thrilled to announce that the current exhibition at the William Grant Still Arts Center has been extended beyond June 14 to August 1 due to overwhelming public response!

CongoSonic: Bantu Beats Across the Americas isn’t just an exhibition—it’s a cultural movement. Featuring immersive displays, rare musical artifacts, and videos from the Congo, this year’s series traces the powerful journey of Bantu-rooted rhythms across the Atlantic. From Congolese rumba to hip-hop, jazz, cumbia, salsa, and beyond, discover how sounds born of resilience and migration continue to shape the global music scene.

Presented in partnership with Friends of the Congo and Basandja Coalition, CongoSonic dives deep into both the legacy and the present-day reality of the Congo. While you explore vibrant sonic traditions, you’ll also gain critical insight into the ongoing humanitarian crisis affecting the region today.

Haven’t visited yet? Now’s your chance. Already came through? Come again—there’s always more to hear, see, and feel.

More film screenings and programs coming soon.

Free admission | William Grant Still Arts Center

Now extended – Closing August 1

After June 14, we will move to a Monday-Friday 12-5pm schedule for viewing due to summer programs.

Don’t miss the sound of a movement that continues to shape continents.

Screening Thursdays | 7:00 p.m.

The Rumba Kings, April 10, 2025
Neptune Frost, May 1, 2025
When We Were Kings, June 5, 2025

Questions? Please contact WGSAC at (323) 734-1165 or wgsarts@lacity.org.

National Gay Pride Month is a citywide celebration of Gay Pride in Los Angeles. The celebration will acknowledge Southern California’s LGBT contributions in education, politics, the arts, culture, and the humanities. Events include educational programs, gallery exhibitions, theater, and dance performances.

LIFE’S Senyawa presents a digital performance by the experimental Indonesian band Senyawa, known for blending traditional Javanese sounds with contemporary noise and industrial influences. Originally created as part of LIFE, a Hammer Museum exhibition exploring speculative futures, this video performance captures Senyawa’s powerful musical language and its intersection with themes of resistance, ritual, and technology.

Club Tempo is one of the only remaining Gay Latino Bars in the area with an emphasis on the LA vaquero (cowboy) scene. Mariachi Arcoiris de Los Angeles, or The Los Angeles Rainbow Mariachi (in English), is the world’s first LGBTQ+ mariachi. A unique and dynamic ensemble representing the traditions of the rich culture of Mexico, this group was created as a haven for mariachi musicians who identify as LGBTQ+ to come together and perform traditional Mexican regional music in an otherwise “machista” and discriminatory subculture of the mariachi world.

The Afro-American Chamber Music Society Orchestra’s Juneteenth Festival features renowned Dramatic Soprano, Gwen Brown from the Fisk Jubilee Singers performing “Five Freedom Songs” by Jessie Montgomery and Virtuoso Violinist, Jordan Busa performing “Fantasy in G” (The Gospel Train) by Julius P. Williams who has performed for Grey’s Anatomy and a plethora of film and entertainers.

The Juneteenth Festival is on Saturday, June 8, 3:00 to 4:30 at the Los Angeles Fifty-Fourth Street Seventh-day Adventist Church.

To learn much more about this event, visit aacmsorchestra.org/events.html.

To purchase tickets, visit eventbrite.com/e/juneteenth-festival-concert-tickets-1353034194699?aff=erelexpmlt.