Oct 19, 2026 | News
Already $2.5M raised toward a major renovation of the Outpost building, a brand-new youth education center, expanded outdoor courtyard, and legacy endowment.
For nearly 40 years, the Outpost Performance Space has served as the heartbeat of New Mexico’s live music scene, bringing world-class jazz, folk, and blues to Albuquerque while showcasing homegrown local talent. Today, the iconic venue announced a major step into its next chapter: a $5.2 million capital campaign to expand its physical footprint, broaden music education for local youth, and secure its future for generations to come.
To date, the campaign has raised $2.5 million, backed by major founding contributions from the Kaman Foundation, Dean Yannias, Tom and Judy Christopher, Wendy Beach, local advertising agency SUNNY505, Annapurna’s World Vegetarian Café and more than 120 donors. The Outpost Board of Directors launched he campaign with $200,000 in combined gifts. Additionally, a group of 17 volunteers – the Future Fund Circle – has gifted $450,000 cumulatively.
The comprehensive $5.2 million initiative includes:
– A nearly $3 Million Renovation of the Yale Blvd. Space: Expanding performance areas, upgrading state-of-the-art acoustics, refreshing the audience seating experience, and expanding the courtyard venue.
– The Kaman Music Education Center: A dedicated east-wing facility allowing youth (K-12) classes, workshops, and rehearsals to run simultaneously with main-stage events.
– The Tom Guralnick Legacy Endowment: Honoring founder Tom Guralnick while eliminating debt and ensuring a seamless leadership transition for the future. “This is way more than a renovation,” said Tom Guralnick, founder and executive director of Outpost Performance Space. “It’s about expanding our education programs, enhancing our audience experience, and ensuring this space meets the evolving needs of today’s artists and local community for the next quarter-century.”
Community Support Driving the Vision
The initial $2.5 million momentum stems from key lead donors passionate about New Mexico’s arts landscape:
The Kaman Foundation is funding the dedicated Kaman Music Education Center.
“It has been my wish for years to have separate spaces for classes and performances. Innumerable times, artists or other collaborators or renters have asked to present concerts on a Monday Tuesday or Wednesday, which has been impossible due to our classes,” says Tom Guralnick. “Similarly, it has become increasingly important to be able to offer youth (and other) classes on weekends, but that has been impossible due to concerts. Separate performance and teaching spaces offer an excellent opportunity for increased community offerings as well as for increased income.”
SUNNY505 is funding the expansion of the intimate outdoor courtyard space. “When we saw the plans for the courtyard space, which will not only welcome artists and guests, but also provide an intimate outdoor performance atmosphere, it was a no-brainer for us to say yes,” said Dezaree Vega-Garcia, CEO of SUNNY505.
A Historic Local Landmark with Deep Roots
The current Outpost building has a colorful 70-year Albuquerque history. Originally constructed as a venue for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the building later housed a secretarial school, a sheet music retailer, a martial arts studio, and a recording studio before Guralnick transformed it into a performance venue in 2000. “When I first saw the building 25 years ago, I knew it would be the perfect space to create an intimate, world-class music venue,” Guralnick explained.
Outpost By the Numbers (Since 2000):
– 3,500+ concerts presented in Albuquerque.
– $5.3M+ paid directly to local, national, and international musicians.
– 20 New Mexico Jazz Festivals produced (the state’s premier annual jazz event).
– 3,000+ New Mexico students served through music education programs.
– 1 of only 6 venues of its kind in the entire United States.
Nationally Recognized: Backed by the National Endowment for the Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Lila Wallace Foundation, and Chamber Music America.
For more information on the capital campaign or how to contribute, please contact Outpost Director, Tom Guralnick, at tguralnick@comcast.net
Jul 30, 2026 | News
It’s a milestone! That’s right, Outpost celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the New Mexico Jazz Festival this year and it’s going to be another great one featuring major touring artists, NEA Jazz Masters, and respected New Mexico-based jazz, international, Rhythm & Blues and Latin music practitioners performing in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos.
Kicking it all off on Thursday, August 27, 7:30pm at the Lensic in Santa Fe (and also closing out the 35th Anniversary Music Under the Stars at the Albuquerque Museum on Friday, August 28) is the New York style, hard core salsa of the three-time Grammy Award-winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra (SHO)! Then, we’re off for a full month of music, art and more! Also at the Lensic this year are esperanza spalding (9/18); René Marie (9/19), A.B. Spellman in conversation with M. Marie (9/19) and NEA Jazz Master Chucho Valdes Royal Quartet (9/20).
At the Outpost this year are the William Parker Heart Trio; Django Festival Allstars (who will also perform in Santa Fe and Taos); Melissa Aldana Quartet; The Rodriguez Brothers; The Bad Plus (on their Farewell Tour!); Fred Hersch Trio; Mingus Dynasty; and so much more! Plus, we’ll have another great Blues Night on Civic Plaza featuring Judith Hill, an Inpost Artspace exhibition: work by Greg Tucker, a special LP Release & Listening Party featuring Cecil Taylor Unit – KiMo Theater 1979 and a panel discussion with William Parker, films at the Guild Cinema and more! Check out the full 20th Anniversary New Mexico Jazz Festival Schedule and Purchase Your Tickets Here Today!
May 6, 2026 | Events
November 5, 2026 • 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Pianist and composer Helen Sung hails from Houston, Texas, and is an alumna of its celebrated High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. After a jazz epiphany during undergraduate studies in classical piano at the University of Texas at Austin, she went on to become part of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute (now the Herbie Hancock Institute) of Jazz Performance, win the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition, and receive prizes including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Claudette Sorel Award from the National Arts Club. In addition to leading her own band, Helen has performed with such luminaries as Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band. Now based in New York City, she is visiting faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and an Associate Professor at Columbia University, where she also was the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at its Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute exploring analogies between jazz and neuroscience. With ten leader albums to her credit, her latest release Oracles (Sunnyside Records, 2026) is a big band project featuring musical portraits of jazz legends who mentored her at the Monk Institute (one of her compositions “Wayne’s World,” won the 2022 BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition). Other activities of note including a digital streaming series “Re-Orientation: Asian American Artists Out Loud” (made possible by a Chamber Music America Digital Residency grant); and partnering with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, the Zuckerman Institute’s Public Programs Department, and Arts & Minds to present programs about the neuroscience behind making/hearing music to engage those living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. A Steinway artist, “Sung plays with crisp swing and elegant invention, her rhythms drawing from the music’s deepest blues roots – and setting listeners’ heads bobbing – while she explores her own fresh ideas, often inspired from her classical training.” (New York Times)
This program is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts via the Western Jazz Presenters Network.
GET TICKETS HERE!
