Founded in 1958, the Long Beach Community Concert Association (LBCCA) is one of just a handful of Greater Long Beach area arts organizations with almost 5 decades of continuous service to the community. LBCCA was originally created as one of the individual organizations that formed a nation-wide chain of community concert associations that contracted artists through a central umbrella organization headquartered in New York. But since 1989 LBCCA has existed as a completely independent, volunteer-run performing arts presenter offering high-quality and affordable public performances each season.

In its earliest years, LBCCA concerts were held at Long Beach’s famed Pike facility and in local high school auditoriums. Over the years the LBCCA subscriber and patron base grew, and in 1982, after more than 20 years of operation, (and just four years after the opening of the Terrace Theater as part of the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center) LBCCA became one of the resident companies regularly using the Terrace Theater. In 1999, LBCCA moved once again, to its current home at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center (CPAC) at California State University, Long Beach.

For the first 25 years of its existence, LBCCA exclusively used artists booked through Columbia Artists-New York (the for-profit arts management organization that coordinated the national tours presented by the various community concert associations throughout the country). However, in the mid-1980s, rising prices, a lack of dependability and the increasingly poor artistic quality of shows offered through Columbia Artists-New York led the LBCCA board to sever its ties with the traditional community concert association model. LBCCA’s executive and artistic programming committees, led by President B-J Sherwin (a professional music educator and musician), began selecting its own artists and negotiating its own contracts. This helped LBCCA regain a level of financial and artistic stability at a time when so many of the other area community concert associations were closing their doors and folding operations.

The range of performances offered over just the past five years is quite wide. From Eastern European ethnic dance to 12-piano extravaganzas, LBCCA’s Artistic Programming policy is committed to offering its audiences a variety of musical styles while never sacrificing artistic quality. Recent performers have included the Vienna Choir Boys, Les Brown’s Band of Renown, The Tamburitzans (Ukrainian folk music and dance) and a celebration of George Gershwin featuring the CSULB Symphony Orchestra.