NATCHITOCHES – Zydeco artist Corey Ledet will play at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum at 800 Front Street in downtown Natchitoches on Saturday, July 17 at 2 p.m. The performance is part of the 2021 NSU Folklife Concert Series, a series of six Saturday concerts in July and August.  The concerts will highlight different folk musical traditions with a 45-minute music set followed by interviews with the musicians and an audience Q&A. Admission is free and open to the general public.

Singer-songwriter ensemble Smithfield Fair will perform on July 24.  The Yvette Landry Trio will perform Cajun and classic country on July 31.  San Antonio, Texas rock artist Nina Diaz will perform on August 7.  Rounding out the series, Blato Zlato (“Swamp Gold” in Bulgarian) will perform Balkan music from New Orleans and Bulgaria on August 14.  In addition to the music performances, folk artists will demonstrate and sell traditional crafts on each day of the series.

Ledet’s love for the Creole/Zydeco music was instant and hard for him to ignore. He studied the originators of the music such as Clifton Chenier, John Delafose and Boozoo Chavis and branched out to include studying any and all artists of Zydeco.  At the early age of 10, he picked up shows playing drums for Houston-based band Wilbert Thibodeaux and the Zydeco Rascals and slowly learned the main instrument of the music – the accordion. He came to truly love any type of accordion – the single-note, triple-note and piano key accordions – and any others. He worked at building his skills until he knew each one fluently. Ledet eventually moved to Louisiana in order to be surrounded by this beautiful culture at all times. He keeps one foot firmly in the tradition while exploring surrounding influences in order to create the best of both worlds. He is able to infuse old and new styles of Zydeco into his own unique sound from all of the people he studied and was influenced by.

Support for the NSU Folklife Concert Series is provided by grants from the Cane River National Heritage Area, Inc. and the Natchitoches Historic District Development Commission.

For more information, call the Louisiana Folklife Center at (318) 357-4332, email folklife@nsula.edu, or go to louisianafolklife.nsula.edu