Nan Bostick

Nan Bostick, of Menlo Park, CA, is the grandniece of Charles. N. Daniels, the ragtime era composer and music publisher who helped Scott Joplin (The King of Ragtime) promote his first published rag in 1899. As Nan will readily demonstrate at the piano, her “Uncle Charlie” composed some excellent rags himself along with such well loved standards as: "Chlo-e: Song of the Swamp;" "Moonlight and Roses;" "She’s Funny That Way;" "Sweet and Lovely;" & "You Tell Me Your Dream, I’ll Tell You Mine."

An avid researcher, Nan is a frequent contributor to vintage music publications, most recently Arcadia's new book: "Images of America - DETROIT Ragtime and the Jazz Age." She is the acknowledged “expert” on the “Indian Intermezzo” craze inadvertently initiated by her great uncle’s 1901 hit "Hiawatha." She contributed the entry on Detroit ragtime composer Harry P. Guy for the Harvard/Oxford African American National Biography and continues tracking down details about ragtime’s women composers, having co-authored the "Lexicon of Ragtime’s Women Composers" with Dr. Nora Hulse. Nan is currently writing a biography about her great uncle, Charles N. Daniels.

Nan served on the board of the West Coast Ragtime Society [(link hidden)] and continues to coordinate the seminars at November’s West Coast Ragtime Festival in Sacramento. Her own multi-media seminars and concerts are warmly received at festivals throughout the country including the West Coast, Scott Joplin, Blind Boone, Lake Superior, Ragtime in Randall, and Indianapolis Classic Ragtime Festivals as well as the mid-July Ragtime Street Fair at the Henry Ford Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI. [(link hidden)]

Cuts from Nan's first CD were used by Ken Burns in his PBS documentary "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson." Nan’s own ragtime compositions are featured on her susequent CDs, all available via (link hidden).