NOMAFEST returns to Omaha Aug. 13-16 with four days of funk, jazz, soul, experimental music and community.
Organized by North Omaha Music and Arts (NOMA), a nonprofit and performing arts hub, the festival raises money to expand access to music and arts education for young people.
In its fifth year, the four-day festival will feature both ticketed performances held at NOMA’s campus and culminate with a free show Saturday night at Gene Leahy Mall at the Riverfront featuring headliners The Bar-Kays, MonoNeon and Keyon Harrold.
Last year’s festival at Turner Park drew about 3,500 attendees, which organizers estimate was roughly 600% more than the year before. The festival draws people to Omaha from all over the region, including cities like St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City and Denver.
NOMA’s Founder and Executive Director, Dana Murray, said that as a fundraiser the festival’s success means more support for the cause, something Murray understands firsthand as someone whose life was shaped by music.
Murray spent a chapter of his life as a professional musician, touring and playing music around the world from his home base in New York City before moving back to Omaha to raise his son.
He found himself wanting to build something that would give back to the city that first piqued his interest in music and pay homage to the historic legacy of North Omaha’s music scene.
“The history of North Omaha is one of jazz excellence,” he said. “It’s one of jazz legacy, and the reverence that I have for the music and the history sort of motivates a lot of our agendas. So it would almost be irresponsible not to bring the biggest names to Omaha just to represent what I think is a significant cultural legacy to the area.”
Creating a festival felt like the next natural step to complement the work that NOMA already does every day.
“We put on close to 200 shows a year, you know? Putting on a festival that brings more people together at one time is always cool, but I mean, this is what we do,” he said.
While creating spaces for the community to gather around music and culture is central to NOMA’s mission, so is giving young people the opportunity to learn to play. Murray said seeing the impact of the organization’s music education program is the reason they do what they do.
He recalled watching young children who had never picked up an instrument before grow into confident leaders — not only in musical ability, but also in how they carry themselves, think critically, and return to motivate and mentor their peers.
“I had one of those moments, you know, recognizing not only where they’ve come from, but where, I think, our education model and its reach, you know, how far we’ve come. So, I had that very recently, and that’s… that’s a very moving moment for me,” Murray said.
NOMA students will have the opportunity to perform as the opening act for the headliners.
“That’s not only great for the kids, because they love to perform, they love to show people, you know, how hard they’re working,” Murray say.
It puts NOMA’s impact on display, too.
“There’s no better fundraiser than putting the result of the funds in front of people,” he added.
He said investing in North Omaha will help make musical excellence more accessible to everyone. It’s that sentiment that inspires him to keep going.
“I was the underserved kid,” he explained. “I understand what it’s like to have desires or wants just always out of financial reach.”
Growing up in the South Omaha projects, he didn’t take his first drum lesson until high school, after getting a job that allowed him to pay for lessons on his own.
He said that experience helped motivate him to put the work in and learn how to take advantage of opportunities that come knocking.
“It made me practice a whole lot because I knew that that was the only way I was going to get better,” he said.”
Murray added that offering the next generation those opportunities can help young people discover their potential.
“A lot of these kids aren’t going to go into music, right? So, you want them to be able to impart these skills on whatever their ultimate passions will be,” he said.
Murray said he wants NOMA to give the North Omaha community a greater sense of pride while inviting the rest of Omaha to be part of it because, he said, NOMA is for everyone.
“I love how diversified our constituents are, that we bring people from everywhere together,” he said. “That our bar of excellence is extremely high. That everything we do, and everything we’ve been able to do, um, has been built on sacrifice. And that we dream big, but we are willing to put in the work to achieve those lofty goals.”
Murray said music education makes certain things possible that other pursuits can’t, and that makes it a valuable investment for Omaha.
“Music is an igniter of thought,” he said. “Music is the perfect remedy for discourse most of the time. It is the great unifier, just because it makes people ponder the possibilities,” he said.
“It motivates accountability. It motivates empathy, love, passion, desire — all of the things that most people are in search of.“