Over 120 cities across the United States will be participating in Make Music Day on Wednesday, June 21, bringing together musicians of all ages and skill levels to create a global festival of music-making. Make Music Day is celebrated annually on the summer solstice and began in France in 1982 as the Fête de la Musique. Since then, it has become a worldwide phenomenon celebrated in more than 1,000 cities around the world.
In the US, Make Music Day debuted in New York in 2007 and has since spread quickly, with 104 cities organizing 3,819 free events last year. This year, the festival has grown even larger, with well over 4,000 events planned across the country. In the Seattle area, local events will take place in Seattle, Issaquah, Gig Harbor, and Federal Way.
Unlike traditional music festivals, Make Music Day is free and open to anyone wanting to participate. Musicians of every age and level, from amateur to professional and of every musical persuasion, fill streets, parks, plazas, porches, rooftops, gardens, and other public spaces to celebrate, create, and share their music with friends, neighbors, and strangers.
One of the highlights of this year’s festival will be Stridulations by composer and percussionist Billy Martin. Stridulations is a suite of interlocking rhythmic compositions that anyone can join, and it will be performed in dozens of cities, including New York City, where Martin will conduct a performance for percussionists and vocalists at Little Island on the West Side of Manhattan.
Another new project called Roomful of Pianos will unite the piano community by bringing together hundreds of pianists of different levels to perform music by W.A. Mozart, William Bolcom, and others arranged for ten pianos or more. Piano showrooms and music schools in several cities have signed on to host these colossal piano events.
Make Music, Make Friends is a new global highlight for this year’s festival, which will connect school children aged 7-13 from Australia, China, Italy, Thailand, the U.K., and the U.S. Ten classes from each country will create a musical greeting video, share it with schools from different countries, and have their students watch the musical messages on June 21 to expose them to different regions and cultures.
All Make Music Day events are free and open to the public. Participants who wish to perform or host musical events may register at www.makemusicday.org. A full schedule of events will be posted on the website in early June.
Make Music Day is presented in the U.S. by The NAMM Foundation and coordinated by the nonprofit Make Music Alliance. The NAMM Foundation is a nonprofit supported in part by the National Association of Music Merchants and its 15,000 members around the world. The NAMM Foundation works to advance active participation in music-making across the lifespan by supporting scientific research, philanthropic giving, and public service programs. For more information about The NAMM Foundation, please visit https://www.nammfoundation.org.
