Patti LaBelle, Common, De La Soul and Branford Marsalis will top the bill of an expanded Music at the Intersection festival when it grooves throughout Midtown and Grand Center for three days beginning Sept. 12.
For the festival’s fifth year, the event will expand from two nights to three and feature more of an open-plan footprint as people without tickets will be able to stroll past many food and merchandise vendors and sample the festival vibe.
Music at the Intersection 2025 will include more than 100 performances and presentations spread across 15 performance spaces, organizers said in a Tuesday announcement.
The event is presented by the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, in partnership with the Steward Family Foundation and the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis.
“The small businesses, the nonprofits, the artists and everybody in the neighborhood — the people who live here and work here — can just experience this district in its full capacity,” said Chris Hansen, Kranzberg Arts Foundation’s executive director. “This is a fully connected neighborhood. Now, there's not going to be hard barriers on Washington Avenue. You're going to be able to walk up and down the streets without a ticket in your hand.”
Hansen declined to say how much festival producers will spend on the event but said its long-term viability is enhanced by participants in a newly launched sponsorship program. Festival organizers produced more than 3,000 free tickets to community members last year.
Other scheduled artists include Lucky Daye, Leon Thomas, John Medeski’s Mad Skillet, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, the S.O.S. Band, the Budos Band and a tribute to Miles Davis organized by Jazz St. Louis. Jazz trumpeter and bandleader Keyon Harrold, a Ferguson native and four-time Music at the Intersection veteran, will be this year’s artist in residence. Cuban-born percussionist and vocalist Pedrito Martinez will be artist at large, sitting in with a host of other artists throughout the weekend. Common will perform with producer Pete Rock.
Music at the Intersection, rebranded by organizers this year as MATI, folds in the panel discussions that producers previously offered as a conference on the Friday of the festival weekend. MATI’s main stages will be the Big Top; a nearby field stage; and The Sovereign, a new venue that festival organizers say will open mid-year.
Small-stage pop-ups will happen at locations throughout Midtown and Grand Center, featuring collaborations with and curation by St. Louis artists and organizations including CAM, Poetry in Motion, S.L.U.M. Fest, Frizz Fest, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis and Pack Dance. Dubbed MATI Places, pop-up events will happen at locations including Harris-Stowe Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Hidden Gems, Scene, Strauss Park, and Kranzberg-operated venues High Low, KAF Art Yard, Sophie’s Artist Lounge, a soon-to-open burger joint on Olive Street. and .ZACK.
Organizers of Laz Jazz Fest, an eclectic music event launched in 2023 and organized largely by members of Brothers Lazaroff and Blvck Spvde, will curate three days of performances outside Urban Chestnut Brewing Company’s Midtown location. The space is near the lounge for festival artists, so impromptu sit-ins will help spice up a lineup of local musicians.
“It’ll be a shaded area where people can kind of escape a little bit,” said David Lazaroff of Brothers Lazaroff, “including local musicians who are not on the bill but are at the festival and want to come connect with other artists. It all starts with this idea of Lazz Jazz and experimenting with genres. Everything you see will be a mixture of the rooted and the experimental.”
MATI tickets will go on sale in July.
