Make Music New York Returns Wednesday With Over 1,000 Performances
Leave your earbuds at home tomorrow! Make Music New York returns for its eleventh year, Wednesday, June 21, to celebrate the summer solstice with musical performances throughout the five boroughs all day long.
From the crack of dawn until dusk, there will be 1,000+ performances by more than 5,000 artists taking place at over 400 venues around New York City. The free, outdoor performances will be held at parks, community gardens, and public plazas, as well as in front of participating restaurants, bars, shops, fitness centers, and cultural institutions.
The festival will feature “every conceivable genre and style of music,” according to the Make Music New York website, performed by diverse local talent of varying ages, backgrounds, and skill levels.
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden will host Inside the Bird Chorus at 5:30am Wednesday morning with composer David Rothenberg playing clarinet alongside guitarist Derek Gripper. The pair will improvise a dialogue between the birds in the park.
Mobile recording studios manned by producers and engineers will park at various locations throughout the day to record anybody who wants to contribute their musical talents to a series of five-minute compositions. The final works will be debuted at the “Street Studio Listening Party” in Fort Greene on Friday, June 23. Participants are instructed to have a piece ready to sing or play. A street studio will set up shop with DJ Kid Koi at Gotham Market at The Ashland (590 Fulton Street) from 12:30pm to 3:30pm.
Make Music New York’s mission is to celebrate everybody’s inner musician, connect New Yorkers, invigorate public spaces, and unite “diverse communities in a spirt of celebration,” the non-profit organization’s website states.
Make Music New York occurs concurrently with similar music festivals happening in more than 750 cities around the world. The festival is open to all musicians and performers who wish to take part in the global musical event.
Along with this annual festival celebrating the summer solstice—the longest day of the year, Make Music New York also hosts a yearly Make Music Winter series on December 21, paying homage the longest night of the year. The winter edition features participatory musical parades.
Check out the Make Music New York website for the full schedule of performances and/or to support the organization.