Mar 13, 2025 - Music

New Orleans aims for UNESCO designation

Chelsea Brasted

A brass band performs as it walks past the Four Points Sheraton in the French Quarter. — Glen David Andrews leads a brass band down Bourbon Street. Photo: Michael DeMocker/Getty Images

New Orleans is applying for a UNESCO designation that would classify the city as a "Creative City of Music."

Why it matters: If successful, the move would allow New Orleans to enter an elite sorority of cities that strategically cooperate around creative and cultural industry.

The big picture: UNESCO, or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, promotes science, culture, education and communication to emphasize a globally shared humanity.

One of the things it does is identify places as World Heritage Sites, which it recognizes for having universal, worldwide value. Louisiana has just one: Poverty Point, which was the site of an ancient city.

Its Creative Cities Network comprises a list of 350 places that "[place] creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level," the organization says.

Only 75 of them are tapped specifically for music.
Kansas City is the only American city among them.

Zoom in: New Orleans & Co. began facilitating a UNESCO application about three years ago, according to a press release. It was submitted in early March.

New Orleans is one of two American cities up for consideration for the next class of Creative Cities entrants. It's not clear which other city is applying this year.

What's next: Successful Creative Cities applicants are typically announced in late fall.

💭 Chelsea's thought bubble: Kansas City?!?

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New Orleans aims for UNESCO designation

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