The FordOct 15 · 2027
Fri · Oct 15, 2027 · The Ford · Hollywood

The Neighborhood Orchestra honors Fela Kuti and the Lagos-to-LA lineage of Afrobeat, with Sandra Izsadore, the Mother of Afrobeat, and Duain Richmond, Broadway's Fela.

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The Ford Amphitheatre - Los Angeles County
The Venue
The Ford · Hollywood Hills
Friday · October 15 · 2027
Cultural Producer & Music Director
Guillermo Tejeda
Draft · Work in Progress

The Concert Poster

An early draft of the show key art. A halftone study in pink, yellow, and paper-blue, placing Fela in front of The Ford itself so the music sits in the canyon where it will be performed. Type, treatment, and credits are still being refined.

Format
18 × 24 in · Print + Digital
Status
Draft v1 · Oct 2026
Remembering Fela at the Ford - draft concert poster
Lagos × LA◆Horns. Percussion. Memory.◆Sandra Izsadore - Mother of Afrobeat◆Duain Richmond - Broadway’s Fela◆The Neighborhood Orchestra◆
Lagos × LA◆Horns. Percussion. Memory.◆Sandra Izsadore - Mother of Afrobeat◆Duain Richmond - Broadway’s Fela◆The Neighborhood Orchestra◆
Date
10·15·27
Venue
The Ford
Budget
$25,500
Break-Even
$42,500
At a Glance

Why this concert, why the Ford, why now.

This page gathers the project in one place: the artists, the lineage, the audience, the budget, and the development arc, so the Ford team, partners, and supporters can read the work the same way we hear it.

This is a culturally rooted, Los Angeles-specific concert production with a real development arc from 2023 through 2026, built to honor Fela Kuti's legacy and to make space for Afrobeat as a living tradition on this coast.

Core Positioning

A producing engine rooted in LA neighborhoods.

The Neighborhood Orchestra is a Los Angeles-based live performance collective and cultural production platform. It operates across live music, civic programming, festivals, public cultural activations, neighborhood-rooted concert experiences, and artist collaborations.

Remembering Fela at the Ford is not standalone - it grows out of a multi-year performance and curatorial trajectory The Neighborhood Orchestra has been building since 2023 through Afrobeat-centered public work, artist collaborations, ticketed events, civic performance, and institutional-facing development.

Applicant Bio · 500 char max

The Neighborhood Orchestra

A Los Angeles-based live performance collective and cultural production platform. Operating as a growth-ready producing engine across live music, civic programming, and interdisciplinary collaborations, we specialize in neighborhood-rooted concert experiences. Grounded in LA’s multicultural traditions, our curated language spans Afrobeat, jazz, funk, and soul - scaling dynamically from independent community activations to major institutional stages.

Project Description · 700 char max

Remembering Fela at the Ford

A major live concert work honoring Fela Kuti as a living global force. Moving beyond a standard tribute, the production traces the Lagos-to-Los Angeles lineage of Afrobeat and foregrounds Sandra Izsadore’s role in that history. The Neighborhood Orchestra delivers a horn-driven, percussion-rich performance with dynamic arrangements, movement, and featured collaborators including Broadway artist Duain Richmond, shaping the evening into a large-scale Los Angeles cultural statement.

Cultural Framework · Musical Language · Traditions Represented · Core Audience

Afrobeat lives here, too.

Cultural Framework

This project treats Afrobeat not as a borrowed style, but as a living historical force shaped through encounter, migration, political consciousness, and cultural exchange. Remembering Fela at the Ford is rooted in African culture and in the Los Angeles conditions that helped deepen Afrobeat’s meaning through Sandra Izsadore, Black radical thought, diasporic exchange, and the city’s long history of cross-cultural artistic collaboration.

Musical Language

The musical language of this show has been built over years through live performance, study, collaboration, and public programming. The Neighborhood Orchestra approaches this work through a horn-driven, percussion-rich ensemble sound shaped by Afrobeat, highlife, jazz, soul, funk, and diasporic groove traditions. It is performed not as imitation, but as a serious Los Angeles dialogue with lineage, rhythm, memory, and collective energy.

Traditions Represented

African musical and political traditions are at the center of this work. From there, the show moves through Afrobeat, highlife, jazz, soul, funk, and broader Black diasporic groove practices, while honoring the real cultural exchanges that made Los Angeles an important site in Afrobeat’s story. This is music shaped by African roots, diasporic conversation, and artists from different communities carrying that language forward together.

Core Audience

This work speaks to Black Angelenos, African diaspora communities, Brown communities across Los Angeles, musicians, dancers, cultural workers, and intergenerational listeners who understand music as memory, movement, and public gathering. It also welcomes audiences newly entering this history through the force of live performance, offering a deeper entry point into Afrobeat as culture, politics, and shared experience.

Why This Show Is Unique

Not an abstract tribute.
Real public work.

It grows out of real public work The Neighborhood Orchestra has already developed through Lagos × LA, the Grand Performances Afrobeat & Highlife context, and the 2026 Fela Kuti GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award tribute at The Paramount, carried forward with Sandra Izsadore, the Mother of Afrobeat, and Duain Richmond, who originated the title role in the Broadway production of FELA!

  • ◆A Los Angeles-specific Afrobeat narrative
  • ◆A real historical throughline involving Sandra Izsadore
  • ◆Duain Richmond, Broadway's FELA!, on the LA stage
  • ◆A multi-year development arc
  • ◆Horn-driven, percussion-rich live ensemble scale
  • ◆Musicianship, memory, lineage, public cultural storytelling
Special Elements of the Experience

Not only a concert.
A live remembrance environment.

Remembering Fela at the Ford extends beyond live performance through two additional elements: short documentary-style video interludes woven between musical sections, and a Día de los Muertos ofrenda honoring Fela Kuti installed at The Ford throughout October. Together, these elements expand the project into a larger act of cultural remembrance, linking music, oral memory, visual ritual, and Los Angeles cross-cultural practice.

01 · Documentary Memory Interludes

Filmed reflections between movements

Between selected musical movements, the evening includes short documentary-style video snippets featuring artists, collaborators, cultural workers, and community voices sharing memories, reflections, and perspectives on Fela Kuti. These interludes do not interrupt the performance so much as deepen it, allowing the audience to move between sound, story, remembrance, and historical context. They create breathing room, scale, and emotional texture, helping the evening function not just as a concert but as a living act of cultural memory.

02 · Ofrenda for Fela Kuti

A Día de los Muertos ofrenda for Fela Kuti

Remembering Fela — sugar skull illustration with the phrase 'He who carries death in his pouch,' 2027

Because the event takes place on October 15 and Guillermo Tejeda brings Mexican American roots into the project's curatorial frame, the production also proposes a Día de los Muertos ofrenda honoring Fela Kuti. While the official day of Día de los Muertos falls on November 1, the construction of altars unfolds throughout October as a ritual of preparation and remembrance. Installed on stage during the concert, the ofrenda becomes part of the live performance itself -- and may also live as a month-long installation at The Ford throughout October, creating a space of remembrance that bridges African legacy, Los Angeles cultural life, and Mexican traditions of honoring the dead. The ofrenda transforms the project from a one-night event into a larger site of reflection, offering audiences a way to encounter Fela's presence before, during, and beyond the performance itself.

Mission

Honor Fela Kuti as a living global force in music, politics, and cultural consciousness while centering Sandra Izsadore’s role in the Afrobeat story, placing Los Angeles back into that lineage, and creating a major public concert experience that expands The Neighborhood Orchestra’s role as a serious cultural producing platform.

Vision

Build a Ford-ready live concert experience that feels cinematic, communal, rhythmically powerful, historically grounded, and emotionally unforgettable - while laying the foundation for a recurring Los Angeles cultural program that can grow into future institutional, civic, and touring contexts.

Why The Ford · 400 char

The Ford is the right next step because we are ready to scale our producing practice into a major LA venue without losing our neighborhood-rooted identity. The program’s emphasis on equity, access, skill building, and visibility aligns directly with how we are growing - as under-resourced but ambitious producers building culturally grounded work for diverse audiences.

Goals · 600 char

If selected, our goal is to grow from strong community, civic, and festival performance work into major-venue-scale producing with sharper advancement, marketing, and production systems. We want to develop a Ford-ready concert model that can later extend to parks, museums, civic stages, and future annual programming. FordLab would help us deepen audience development, strengthen producing infrastructure, and transform a powerful live concept into a repeatable large-format cultural production.

Afrobeat & Fela Performance Trajectory

2023 → 2026. Real work. Real receipts.

01
October 15, 2023

Lagos × LA: An Afrobeat Story

Hello Stranger LA · Little Tokyo

Ticketed public event with The Neighborhood Orchestra Collective, Duain Richmond, Sandra Izsadore, Kosine, MBTA. Live onstage conversation with Sandra Izsadore moderated by Murs. Early proof of concept for Afrobeat-centered public programming combining performance, storytelling, oral history, and LA context.

02
July 27, 2024

Okwy Osadebe & The Neighborhood Orchestra

Grand Performances · California Plaza, DTLA

Free public civic concert. A major outdoor stage context for Afrobeat and Highlife material - the Orchestra presented a specialized tribute set of original work and classic Fela arrangements.

03
January 31, 2026

Fela Kuti GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Tribute

The Paramount · Los Angeles

Ticketed tribute event with Duain Richmond and The Neighborhood Orchestra as the core live ensemble. The only live-band Los Angeles event honoring Fela Kuti’s GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award - confirming readiness for a major Fela-centered program.

Supporting Development Context

Collaborations with Duain Richmond · work involving Sandra Izsadore · outreach and development with Nnamdi Moweta and Radio Afrodicia · Afrobeat & Highlife positioning at Grand Performances · Council District collaborations · Recording Academy adjacent activity · public and civic performance development across Los Angeles.

Work Samples

Live ensemble energy. Stage presence. Production readiness.

Work Sample 01
Sample
01
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Work Sample 02
Sample
02
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Work Sample 03
Sample
03
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Working Repertoire

Music & Choreography

The songs we have prepared with full musical arrangements and choreography for the show.

From The Feed

Live On Instagram

Watch the band, the dancers, and the energy — straight from the stage.

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Preliminary Budget

$25,500 working budget.
$42,500 gross break-even.

Core band musicians$8,000
Featured guest artists$4,000
Artist Fees Subtotal$12,000
Musical direction / arrangement$2,500
Rehearsals$2,500
Musical Prep Subtotal$5,000
Lead producer / creative direction$3,500
Co-producer / project coordination$2,000
Producer Fees Subtotal$5,500
Advancement / artist relations$1,500
Marketing / design / documentation$1,500
Support Subtotal$3,000
Total Estimated Budget$25,500
Revenue Split
60%
Producer
/
40%
The Ford
Ticket Tier Ladder
$30
Entry
$45
Standard
$60
Preferred
$75
Premium
$100
Patron

Blended average ticket value in the $45 to $50 range; premium tiers help close the gap.

Break-Even Math
$25,500 ÷ 0.60 = $42,500 gross

Do not rely on ticket sales alone - position as mixed-revenue cultural production supported by sponsorship, private donors, aligned partnerships, and contributed support where available.

Budget Narrative

Disciplined in scale. Built to be supported.

Estimated Total Budget

$25,500 - covering artist fees, guest artist fees, rehearsals, musical direction, producer fees, advancement, artist relations, and project support. LA Phil crew costs determined separately per FordLab program elements.

Confirmed Funding

No outside funds fully confirmed at this stage. The project is being structured with a realistic mixed-revenue model balancing ticket income, presenting support, and contributed revenue sources.

Tentative Funding

Ticket revenue · sponsorship · private donor or patron contributions · aligned cultural partnerships. Scaled as an LA cultural production with artist fees and core producer costs kept realistic and supportable.

Why This Project Matters Now

Musical force.
Historical memory.
Public cultural storytelling.

The Ford offers the right next scale for the work already in motion - a major Los Angeles venue where The Neighborhood Orchestra can bring Afrobeat lineage, Sandra Izsadore’s history, and a horn-driven live ensemble together at full power.