This year, the organization’s staff, four Memphis Police officers and about 20 kids in attendance used the coming holiday to send a message. 

“There’s a ton of resources in Memphis that are yet to be tapped into,” Jarnell Stokes said. “I would like to see my city become an entertainment hub, that reaches far beyond just basketball and hip-hop.”

Past tribute artist contest winners performed their favorite Elvis gospel songs backed up by the Graceland-endorsed EAS Band. 

The Lunar New Year is “a celebration of the arrival of spring, and a time for families to gather,” Kathy Dumlao, Director of Education and Interpretation at the Brooks Museum of Art, said.

The Memphis Youth Symphony will present its annual fundraising concert, “Symphony ReDefined,” on Feb. 16 at Crosstown Concourse.

The Forum announced Friday, Feb. 9, that the artist would be playing a show there as part of his upcoming tour this year.

“He was a doer of doers. And he just got things done, and he did it with an amazing amount of personality,” said Kevin Kane, president and CEO of Memphis Tourism.

This week, a Black History Month exhibition opens at Arrow, the Brooks Museum celebrates Lunar New Year and Elvis tribute artists invade Graceland.

“Music is what we have in common with strangers,” said Jason Isbell, now six-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, to a near standing-room-only crowd at Rhodes College.

The archive of 60 years of Ernest Withers’ photographs joins the national set of historic places as the Beale Street entertainment district marks 10 years of operation and management by the Downtown Memphis Commission.

In other Memphis-related moments at the Grammys, Mid-South blues great Bobby Rush won Best Traditional Blues Album for “All My Love for You.”

A program designed to commemorate Memphis Black History opened this weekend at the Museum of Science and History.

The film is the first screenplay from a native Memphian and a former member of the Grizzlies. 

In February, a genre-shifting vocalist comes to the Germantown Performing Arts Center with new material, a wind ensemble explores atmospheric modernity at Crosstown Arts’ Green Room, an indie-folk veteran comes to the cozy Comeback Coffee cafe and an R&B super-show will bring the party to the Landers Center.

This week, “Confederates” at Hattiloo explores racial and gender bias, singer-songwriter Jason Isbell speaks at Rhodes and adults get play time at CMOM.

Theatergoers will “hear the people sing” this month, as “Les Mis” returns to the Orpheum, two companies perform different Tennessee Williams plays and “The Squirrels” have an existential crisis on stage, in full-length squirrel costumes.

After a career that shifted into marketing, publicity and non-profit management, this moment has brought Deanie Parker full circle, back to her beginnings as a singer and a songwriter. 

Memphis organizations feature a variety of experiences for attendees to witness, learn from and enjoy in honor of Black History Month. 

The International Association of Blacks in Dance ended its 34th annual conference with its “The Soul Must Dance” Gospel Performance and Scholarship Awards Brunch.

“1666: A Novel” is Lora Chilton’s nod to her father’s people and the devastation they suffered from the colonizers in Virginia.

This 534-song, 20-CD collection stitches a rich tapestry of a mostly lost Memphis, mapping the city, naming the infamous and celebrating the food. 

Chattanooga-based Freedom Sings USA and the Department of Veteran Affairs presented a two-day music therapy event at the Lt. Col. Luke Weathers Jr. VA Medical Center at 1030 Jefferson Ave.

Michael Roy, who started his arts career geared towards “serious abstract paint(ing),” says a Memphis College of Art professor told him “(your) hand wants to be a cartoonist.”