The Louis Armstrong House Museum Announces 2025 Armstrong Now Cohorts

This Year’s Artists In Residence Include Multi-Instrumentalist, Composer & Storyteller Etienne Charles And Choreographer, Filmmaker & Educator Irishia Hubbard Romaine

The Louis Armstrong House Museum To Launch The Corona Collection On October 2nd

Wednesday, August 20 - Queens, NY - Today, The Louis Armstrong House Museum and Archival Center have announced the 2025 cohorts of their Armstrong Now Artist-in-Residenceprogram, Etienne Charles and Irishia Hubbard Romaine. Each respective artist will explore the Armstrong archival collection for inspiration to furnish new projects spanning music, dance, spoken word, and visual and performing arts. Etienne Charles will perform on September 27 at The Jazz Room (Jerry’s Place) at 3:00 PM, and Irishia Hubbard will perform on October 18. at The Jazz Room (Jerry’s Place) at 3:00 PM.

This latest news also follows the recent announcement regarding the launch of The Corona Collection on Thursday, October 2, 2025 at The Louis Armstrong House Museum, running through March 2026.

Previously, 2024’s artists-in-residence included Lisa La Touche, Immanuel Wilkins, Steven Salcedo, and Soul Science Lab. For 2025, The Louis Armstrong House Museum welcomes artists-in-residence: Trinidadian trumpeter, percussionist, composer, and storyteller Etienne Charles and distinguished choreographer, filmmaker, and educator Irishia Hubbard Romaine. 

Each talent has already made an impact upon academia and culture, embodying the program’s core pillars. Conducting in-depth research for his compositions by traveling to relevant regions and immersing himself in the area’s respective culture, Charles was both a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2022 Creative Capital Awardee. Romaine is currently an Assistant Professor at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and a Mellon Arts & Practitioner Fellow at Yale University, focusing her research on the unwritten history of Black moving image arts through Africanist Aesthetics. 

The Armstrong Now Artist-in-Residence program contextualizes Louis Armstrong’s contributions within historical and 21st Century constellations of Black making, thinking, and vitality. The residency provides established and emerging artists with a unique platform to create new work inspired by the vast collection of artifacts and documents in the Armstrong Archives. Artists-in-Residence spend time at the Museum for an intensive period of research and rehearsal, creating their art based on thematic content drawn from the Archives. At the end of their residency, artists will present a public performance of the work at the Museum, while additional performances may premiere in collaboration with partners throughout New York and beyond.

Etienne Charles commented, “It's a huge honor to be chosen to work with the Louis Armstrong House museum and Archives on the 2025 Armstrong Now Project. I'm keenly looking forward to learning so much more about Louis Armstrong, his history and legacy.” 

“I am honored to be a 2025 Armstrong Now Artist in Residence,” said Irishia Hubbard Romaine. “For me, Armstrong’s archive is not static. It is a living source, one that invites artist and scholars alike to reframe the histories we inherit and to move through them with both critical rigor and creative possibility. I’m eager to listen deeply, move in dialogue with the materials, and co-create something that honors his legacy.” 

Continuing a prolific year, The Corona Collection provides a comprehensive new oral history exhibition that shines a spotlight on the voices, memories, and legacies of the Corona and East Elmhurst communities that Lucille and Louis Armstrong were involved in. It offers another perspective on Lucille and Louis projected through the voices of neighbors who knew them personally– preserving their cherished memories, heartfelt tales, and neighborhood histories. You can watch and learn more here.  

Last year, The Louis Armstrong House Museum won the IMLS National Medal for Museums, the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries that demonstrate significant impact in their communities. Among the 10 Museum and Library Awards recipients, the Louis Armstrong House Museum was the only honor recipient in New York state. The museum’s Executive Director Regina Bain accepted the award at a ceremony in Washington, DC.

In July 2023, The Louis Armstrong House Museum opened the doors to their new state-of-the-art Center, preserving and expanding the legacy and ideals of America’s first Black popular music icon. Armstrong’s values of Artistic Excellence, Education and Community are fostered in Here to Stay, the Center’s exhibition, curated by award-winning pianist, composer and Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz, Jason Moran. Grounded in the new building design by Caples Jefferson Architects, the Center has become a permanent home for the 60,000-piece Louis Armstrong Archive (the world's largest for a jazz musician) and houses a 75-seat venue offering performances, lectures, films, and educational experiences.

The Center has quickly become a new international destination celebrating Armstrong’s distinctive role in African-Diaspora history and vitality, offering year-round exhibitions, performances, readings, lectures, and screenings through an array of public programs for all ages. With longstanding partners Queens College and the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation (President, Wynton Marsalis), and with a growing list of members, supporters and programmatic collaborators, the museum and center has become a Queens-based hub for inspiration and learning, economic development and tourism - from New Yorkers to the world.