Make Music New York turned 20 this summer, and it marked the milestone the only way it knows how: by flooding parks, plazas, sidewalks and subway overpasses across all five boroughs with free public music for a single day on June 21. In Bushwick, that meant a Latin jazz set, a cookout and homemade ice cream inside a community garden.
The festival, first reported by AMNY, is New York’s edition of the global Make Music Day now held in more than 120 countries. It ran from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on the summer solstice. Every performance was free to watch, and playing was open to anyone who wanted to sign up. The New York concerts were among roughly 1,000 performances statewide that Make Music New York helps organize each year.
Here is the part that separates it from a normal concert series: nobody curates the lineup. Make Music New York signs up musicians and host venues, matches them, and handles the city permits so performers only have to show up and play.
“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 idea is to surprise everyone on the streets of New York with what’s happening that day.”
Aaron Friedman founded Make Music New York and now leads the national Make Music Alliance. He held the first event in 2007, which drew 560 performances in a single day, after seeing France’s Fete de la Musique in 2006. That French tradition started in 1982, when the country’s Ministry of Culture pushed citizens to play music in the streets.
“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.”
Participation dropped to zero during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been climbing back ever since, which is what makes the 20th edition a comeback as much as an anniversary.
In Bushwick, the Woodbine Street Block Association Garden filled up as the Benny Lopez Latin Jazz Ensemble played into the evening. The resident gardeners welcomed people with a cookout and a spread of food, and a garden volunteer capped the night with an encore set and homemade ice cream. Franzlino Sevilla and Eliza Lewis, who live nearby, wandered in after hearing the music and stayed for the show. “I thought it was amazing,” Sevilla said.
Elsewhere in the city, the day ran on the same come-as-you-are logic. At Union Square, the New York City Guitar School ran a Mass Appeal event that welcomed guitarists of every skill level to play together, using big poster boards of chords to guide the crowd through songs like Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.” Oscar Duran, who has helped run the school’s Make Music events since 2009, was on the team behind this year’s Union Square concert.
“Even in the band, you don’t play with like 100 people, so that’s pretty cool,” Duran said, comparing it to gigging with 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, handed the baton to strangers and let them conduct Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The volunteer conductors ranged from children to adults. “You have to kind of really play along with the emotion that they’re bringing,” said Chris Smith, who plays bass in the orchestra.
Under 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 set 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 of the program was “Down by the Riverside.”
The set pulled in Dr. Margaret Farrell, an ethnomusicologist who teaches at Lehman College. Carrying a banjo and a guitar on her way home from another music event, she caught the back half of the performance as she came out of the subway. “I think they sound great,” Farrell said.
Make Music New York and the national organization also run programs throughout the year, including Make Music Winter on the winter solstice. Musicians and venues can sign up at makemusicny.org.
Featured image: Bushwick Daily image
