{"id":94317,"date":"2025-12-24T00:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T00:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/94317\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T00:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T00:10:08","slug":"musician-and-blue-bamboo-center-founder-chris-cortez-has-passed-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/94317\/","title":{"rendered":"Musician and Blue Bamboo Center founder Chris Cortez has passed away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Credit: Jim Leatherman<\/p>\n

Chris Cortez \u2014 musician, founder of the nonprofit performing arts haven Blue Bamboo Center, and the man who guided the venue to its expansive new home at the old Winter Park Library building on New England Avenue with wife, Melanie \u2014 has passed away.<\/p>\n

Cortez was diagnosed with brain cancer in October. He decided to step away from his day-to-day duties at the venue and headed west with Melanie to California to be near family. He played his last show on the Blue Bamboo stage in front of a packed house on Oct. 30.<\/p>\n

Cortez passed away on Sunday, Dec. 21, according to a post shared on the Blue Bamboo\u2019s Facebook on Tuesday<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cChris Cortez, founder and visionary of the Blue Bamboo Center For The Arts, may you rest in peace, knowing that your vision and your dreams are part of your legacy,\u201d read the post \u2014 very fittingly. The expanded Blue Bamboo 2.0 facility<\/a> in the old Winter Park Library is a testament to his tireless work on behalf of Orlando arts and music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hold deep gratitude for Chris\u2019 talent, his generosity, his belief in artists and the home he made for so many of us,\u201d wrote Orlando musician and community-builder Beth McKee on social media.<\/p>\n

Orlando\u2019s daily dose of what matters. Subscribe to The Daily Weekly.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Jim Leatherman Chris Cortez \u2014 musician, founder of the nonprofit performing arts haven Blue Bamboo Center, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[13772,25033,139,141,25034,7362,140],"class_list":{"0":"post-94317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-blue-bamboo-center","9":"tag-chris-cortez","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-headlines","12":"tag-orlando-jazz","13":"tag-orlando-music","14":"tag-orlando-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}