Celebrating Over 30 Years of a Unique Cultural Exchange Project led by Elmar Hoff
On May 1 at the new Deutsches Haus New Orleans, a group of community advocates, music lovers and guests from Gronau, Germany came together to celebrate over 30 years of cultural exchange and honor the works and archive of Elmar Hoff. Elmar’s love of New Orleans and commitment to sharing the culture with his native city of Gronau, Germany over the years has bridged the two cities and created unique opportunities for collaboration.
In a special ceremony, Elmar presented his life’s work and was honored by representatives from New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell’s Office, the Honorary German Consul, Susanne Veters, Bethany Bultman of the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic and Cherice Harrison-Nelson, co-founder of the Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame and Big Queen of the Guardians of the Flame Mardi Gras Indians.
Elmar proudly donated his documentation of this special journey – over three decades of cultural exchange visits including musicians and advocates from New Orleans to Gronau and vice versa, the creation of Gronau Jazz Festival and much more – which has generated a vast collection of photographs, videos, documents and more.
After Hurricane Katrina, Elmar and friends came to the aid of New Orleans by raising funds to help the Musicians’ Clinic and other cultural organizations keep the city’s music and culture alive. Elmar has compiled, digitized and donated his archive – an immense collection of media, which mostly contains material that New Orleans lost during the storm, which he has now made available to institutions in New Orleans.