New Orleans Jazz Museum Refreshes Live and Recording Spaces

New Orleans, LA (November 21, 2025)–The New Orleans Jazz Museum has completed a renovation of its third-floor performance center and associated control room in collaboration with WSDG.

​The museum’s performance center hosts live music five days a week, while also serving as the site’s central live room for recording purposes. The renovation of the 150-seat space and its attendant control room was reportedly driven by a desire for more robust production capabilities as well as a more refined location for the museum’s broadcast and webcast activities.

Herb Alpert, who has utilized WSDG on many projects, introduced museum leadership to the acoustics and AV consulting and design firm, who partnered with Trapolin-Peer Architects and chief production engineer Danny Kadar and his team on the renovation. “Working alongside Trapolin-Peer, who have redefined the look and feel of the museum over the past five years, we devised a program to elevate their performance and recording spaces while also supporting their pivot to livestreaming and broadcast,” states WSDG partner, COO Joshua Morris.

​A key part of the project was retaining the Performance Center’s existing acoustic character while tightening it in both an acoustic and A/V sense for its expanded range of responsibilities. “It’s ultimately a balance of needs here—preserving the magic of a small, lively performance venue while optimizing it for recording and streaming,” says WSDG partner, director of construction technology, Matt Ballos. “Doing that while also designing a purpose-built FOH position that matched the feel of the room allowed us to elevate the entire space without compromising what made it special in the first place.”

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More extensive renovations were made to the venue’s control room to turn it into a recording and mixing space. This included reshaping the room and updating its interior room acoustics, building a new ISO booth, adding accommodations for Dolby Atmos recording and mixing, and reworking the HVAC systems for quieter operation.

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“We do a lot of work in that control room that goes beyond its initial remit—recording and broadcasting the shows, recording artists for release on Gallatin Street Records, creating audio content for the museum exhibits, the list goes on,” Kadar says. “Now we finally have a control room where we can do all these things and mix in-house.”