After 28 years, the name says it all:

“ Historic Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival ​”

“Keeping Ragtime and early Jazz alive in the Sierra Foothills”
The Musical Legacy Continues

We are basking in the glow of an extremely successful 28th Annual Festival!
Thanks to everyone who joined us in Sutter Creek this year, you made this event so memorable. Over the next few weeks, we'll be updating the website and posting some photos and memories from this year's festival.

We can't wait to see you next year for our 29th festival:
August 13-16, 2027

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Welcome to the 
Historic Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival

It was a wonderful and memorable 28th annual festival in 2027!!
Great Music, Perfect warm weather, top-notch performers and so much fun.
But now it's also time to look towards the future:

Presenting The 2027 Historic Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival​

August 13–16, 2026

Yes, after 28 years, the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival is indeed “Historic!”
     Many great years of great Ragtime and early Jazz music have pervaded this quaint gold rush town of Sutter Creek, known as the “Jewel of the Motherlode”, and created a unique and special festival touted as the best festival by many of the performers!
Just stepping onto the streets of this charming town, you realize that you are in for a treat. The Historic Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival brings a respite to the sometimes polished and stiff feel of some of the bigger festivals.  Here in Sutter Creek the rush of daily life slows to a crawl.  Friendly merchants and townsfolk all striving to make the visitor feel right at home and forget about your problems back home.  Excellent dining, first rate lodging, ample beer and wine tasting shops and the sounds of Ragtime music will lull you to the days gone by.   
     Our festival creates a relaxed and intimate setting where all can feel as though they are best of friends.  Talk to the performers, buy their drinks and even take them out to lunch or dinner.  A perfect way to get to know your favorite performer. 
     This Historic Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival runs for 4 days, Friday thru Monday, August 13-16.  Festivities start at 4 pm on Friday afternoon and ends Sunday afternoon after the finale concert.  Music is performed at 7 venues along Main Street, which includes 2 special concerts highlighting the performers.  And of course, we will have Silent Movies with piano accompaniment at the Hotel Sutter this year.  There is almost always after-hours jamming at the hotel and other venues as well along with more open piano times.
     An information table will be set up in front of the Auditorium/City Hall, to obtain your event badges, purchase t-shirts, music and the performer's CD's.  Once situated you may now meander through the town and visit the unique friendly shops, antique stores, wine tasting spots and the fine restaurants.  

Information on the different venues, lodging choices and Festival pricing are all within this website at your fingertips! If you have any unanswered questions, feel free to contact the festival at:
[email protected]
or call (209) 304-0835

Thank you and we all look forward to seeing you in our favorite Town.

For more information on Sutter Creek, please go to www.suttercreek.org
or call the Sutter Creek Visitor Center @ (209) 217-4857
or call the Amador County Chamber of Commerce @ (209) 223-0350

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I wanted to thank you for the wonderful time at the festival in August and also for the wonderful reception my music received. I will always have a warm feeling in my heart for 
you and the rest of Sutter Creek.

Gil Lieby - Ragtime Composer, Festival Attendee

Composer

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Attendee

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​For the first time my wife and I attended the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival even though we have known about it for a number of years.  I have been an organizer for many projects and aware of the time and effort it takes and you folks did it in spades or should I say in a perfect syncopated beat! Sutter Creek is the perfect venue for this genre of music and a nice getaway from San Francisco where we live. So thanks again for all of your work for this fun activity
and helping preserve the ragtime music slice of Americana.

​Jackson McElmell - Festival Attendee

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You should know how appreciative Sutter Creek is for the great Ragtime Festival you and your team brought to this town this weekend. The festival was a perfect fit for us. It is a wonderful event that attracts a good number of people over several days and with the performers scheduled at various venues this is an opportunity for the Ragtime Enthusiasts to enjoy Sutter Creek while enjoying the music. All of you did a marvelous job of organizing this year's festival and your pre-planning showed in every aspect of the festival.

 ​Lisa Klosowski - Sutter Creek Business Association

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​What a great time my husband and I had at the Ragtime Festival this past weekend.  The music was terrific! Such wonderful Ragtime musicians providing top notch music in an outstanding setting! It also gave us time to visit, shop and to eat in Sutter Creek for the three days, two nights we were there. It has been some years since our last visit and this was a wonderful opportunity to re-visit a most warm and friendly town. 

​Farris Horak - Festival Attendee

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​We want to express our gratitude for allowing us to be a part of the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival. We had a fabulous time and loved every minute of it, start to finish! We wouldn't change a minute of it. Thank you for giving us this wonderful opportunity to play. We'd do it all over in a heartbeat!

Chris Bradshaw - Musician

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The 28th Annual Historic Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival is on the books!  
      Once again, festival fans and musicians came together in our little corner of the Sierra Foothills to celebrate America's first popular music. The weather was warm and the music was hot! We are so grateful to the City of Sutter Creek and our Festival Director, Stevens Price, for spearheading the effort to make the auditorium nice and cool for our festival guests. If you would like to help out the Festival and the city by donating to the Auditorium Air Conditioning Fund, please click this link to learn more.

      We had such an amazing number of talented musicians this year who provided so much great ragtime, we had to expand our Saturday Evening Concert to fit everyone in! Throughout the weekend, music could be heard at 7 venues throughout historic downtown Sutter Creek, filling the air with the joyous sounds of ragtime. New special events this year included a Composition Contest featuring 6 new rags written for Sutter Creek, as well as a ragtime bingo scavenger hunt in which attendees filled out their bingo cards as they heard certain rags played during the festival. One lucky winner took home an all-events badge for the 2027 festival!

      This year, we had a record number of 9 youth performers this year who were all featured in the Chris Bradshaw Youth Talent Showcase. Among these extremely talented youth are 4 Scott Joplin Foundation Ragtime Kids, 3 Old-Time Piano Junior Champions, 2 Old-Time Piano New Rag Champions, and 1 California Arts Scholar. Rest assured that the future of ragtime is in good hands. The festival was able to award a $1000 scholarship this year to John Beggs as well as the second annual Tom Brier Scholarship Contest, which awarded a $2500 Scholarship to Michael Flores. Both of these young musicians are very deserving of these scholarship prizes, and we are proud to have helped them on their musical journey.

      Stevens Price and Keith Taylor are the founding members of the Sutter Creek Festival and Keith was here for the 25th festival but was unable to travel from his home in Oregon due to health concerns. We were excited to welcome a total of 6 new performers this year, including Eve Elliot, David Cavilari, and John Beggs, all champions from the Old-Time Piano Contest. We also rolled out our new Auxiliary Musician program this year, which gives ragtime fans who will be at the festival anyway a chance to perform in up to 2 half-hour sets. 4 pianists took advantage of this new program this year. We hope to see all of these talented musicians again next year at our 29th annual festival! A full recap of this year's festival will soon be posted on the Past Festival Highlights Page.

      ​Thank you to all who attended and made it such a great event, and also to everyone who watched our YouTube Livestreams this year! We hope to see you in person next year. A huge thanks to our dedicated volunteers and of course to all the performers who delivered an incredible festival. We'd also like to thank Bill Lundgren and Rob Thomas for capturing some great photos and videos during the weekend and allowing us to post them on this website. See some of them below and also check out our Media Gallery Page for more festival memories. Keep watching for new updates soon as our 29th Historic Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival is coming up soon. Plan to be a part of this amazing event: AUGUST  13 - 16, 2027.

Please fill out the contact page on this site so you can be added to our mailing list.  We will send out periodic emails during the year regarding the festival. 
Thank you,
Jared Szabo
​Festival Webmaster & Musician

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