Make Music New York filled parks, plazas, sidewalks and other venues across the five boroughs with free public music performances for its 20th annual festival.
The festival, which is New York’s version of the global Make Music Day held in over 120 countries worldwide, ran from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on June 21. Every performance was free to watch and playing in the festival was open to anyone who wanted to join. The concerts in NYC this year were among the 1,000 performances state-wide that Make Music New York helps organize every year.
“Make Music New York is the city’s only music holiday that’s for the people and by the people,” James Burke, executive director of Make Music New York, said.
The festival does not curate lineups, Burke said. What it does is sign up musicians and host venues, then match them and handle the city permits so performers only have to show up and play
“The idea is to surprise everyone on the streets of New York with what’s happening that day,” Burke said.
Aaron Friedman, who founded Make Music New York and now leads the national Make Music Alliance, held the first Make Music New York event in 2007, which drew 560 performances in a single day.
“It’s not listen-to-music day, you know, it’s not go-to-a-festival day,” Friedman said. “It’s actually like, take your dusty guitar out of the closet and come outside and play.”
Friedman was inspired to start the festival after seeing France’s Fête de la Musique in 2006, which was born when the French Ministry of Culture encouraged citizens to play music in the streets in 1982.
After initial success, Make Music New York’s participation dropped to zero during the COVID-19 pandemic, but has been steadily returning ever since.
At Union Square, the New York City Guitar School held a Mass Appeal event. The event welcomed guitar players from all skill levels to play, using big poster boards with guitar chords to lead the musicians through songs such as “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan and more.
Oscar Duran, who has been involved with the New York City Guitar School’s Make Music events since 2009, was part of the team that helped run the Union Square Mass Appeal concert this year.
“Even in the band, you don’t play with like 100 people, so that’s pretty cool,” Duran said about how different the experience is from playing in his own band, Traces of Alithea.
At Astor Place, the New York City Googler Orchestra, a group founded in 2022 at Google New York’s campus, invited strangers to conduct Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Conductors ranged from children to adults, all anxious to conduct a real orchestra.
“You have to kind of really play along with the emotion that they’re bringing,” said Chris Smith, who plays bass in the orchestra.
In the Bushwick neighborhood in Brooklyn, the Woodbine Street Block Association Garden was filled with people as the Benny Lopez Latin Jazz Ensemble played into the evening hours.
Attendees were welcomed with a cookout and a spread of food prepared by the resident gardeners. The evening was then topped off by an encore set and homemade ice cream from one of the garden’s volunteers.
Franzlino Sevilla and Eliza Lewis, who live nearby, wandered in after hearing the music and stayed to enjoy the concert. “I thought it was amazing,” Sevilla said.
Underneath a 7 train overpass in Queens, the Manhattan Opera Repertory Ensemble, known as MORE Opera, performed for Make Music Day for the first time. Founder Cheryl Warfield, a music teacher who has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, built the program of songs around two nearby holidays.
“We combined Juneteenth and July 4 because they are two holidays that both celebrate freedom and liberty, and especially since this is our 250th birthday, we wanted to do something really special,” Warfield said. Her favorite song of the program was “Down by the Riverside.”
The festival’s ability to draw passersby even brought in Dr. Margaret Farrell, an ethnomusicologist who teaches at Lehman College. Farrell, who was carrying a banjo and guitar on her way back from a music event, caught the latter half of the performance as she exited the subway.
“I think they sound great,” Farrell said.
Apart from June 21, Make Music and Make Music New York also run a handful of programs throughout the year, including Make Music Winter on the winter solstice. More information and sign-up opportunities can be found at makemusicny.org.
Two decades in and the festival remains an inclusive and positive celebration for New Yorkers.
“You just never know what to expect,” Warfield said.
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