MAKE MUSIC NEW YORK to Feature Exciting Lineup of Free Music-Making Programs Citywide

Make Music Day is being staged in over 100 U.S. cities and the entire states of Connecticut, Hawaii, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin. 

By: Jun. 17, 2021
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Make Music New York, the unique, live, free citywide musical celebration held each June 21, is returning for its 15th consecutive year with a schedule of exciting and diverse in-person outdoor concerts, performances, music lessons, jam sessions and other music making events. This year's celebration is returning to a mostly in-person event after last year's shifted to a largely virtual format due to COVID.

For a full list of events, please visit makemusicny.org

Make Music New York is the flagship event of Make Music Day, which is being staged in over 100 U.S. cities and the entire states of Connecticut, Hawaii, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin. Highlights of MMNY will include:

a-? 12 PM - This Moment in Time (South Street Seaport's Upper Square, 89 South St.)

For one uninterrupted hour beginning at 12 noon, Ryan Sawyer and the percussion ensemble Talujon will perform new works on multiple gongs to mark the losses of the past year.

a-? 12 PM - Gallop in Times Square (43rd/44th Street Plaza at Broadway)

Four pianists - Lang Lang International Music Foundation Young Scholars Aliya Alsafa, Maxim Lando, and Harmony Zhu, joined by Blair McMillan - will perform Albert Lavignac's "Galop-marche" for eight hands on a single Steinway grand piano. The group will also join forces on four-hands pieces by Brahms, Debussy, and Ligeti.

a-? 12 PM - 4 PM - The Apollo Presents "Respect the House" (Under the Apollo Theater Marquee, 253 W 125th St.)

"Respect the House" reclaims House music with sets by DJ Jess, the house DJ for Amateur Night at the Apollo; Tina Dixon from House in Harlem on WHCR-FM; DJ Black Icon 1 from The Harlem Connection on WBAI-FM; and DJ, songwriter, music curator and educator LiKWUID (Stylez)

a-? 12 PM - 6 PM - Stonewall Sings (Stonewall National Monument, 38-64 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village)

The annual "Stonewall Sings" returns with an all-day lineup of predominantly LGBTQIA musicians.

a-? 1 PM Bronx Arts Ensemble (Train Park Garden, Gale Place, The Bronx)

A special performance by violinist and composer Evelyn Petcher featuring her original folk music arrangements and pieces for solo violin, paired with short excerpts from classic solo violin sonatas by J.S. Bach and Eugene Ysaÿe.

a-? 3 PM - 7 PM - Music Traveler at Oculus World Trade Center Oculus (Ground level, Church Street)

This project is a piano-centric program featuring five distinct, lively, and interactive sets: 'Everyone's Baby,' produced by Lynn Yen; 'Live by Living People,' produced by Hyung-Ki Joo; 'Literally, It Goes With Everything,' produced by Elias Constantopedos; 'Multi-Instrumentalism,' produced by Julia Rhee; and 'Melt the Melting Pot', produced by Louise Lau.

a-? 4 PM - 8 PM - The Neighborhood Venue Alliance (Marisa Hernandez Park, Knickerbocker Avenue and Starr Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn )

The Neighborhood Venue Alliance & participating music venues brings Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick to life with a lineup of local bands including Haybaby and 95 Bulls, DJ Ickarus.

a-? 4 PM - 5 PM- Pecussia's Maracatu (Travers Park, 76-9 34th Ave in Jackson Heights, Queens)

Pecussia's Maracatu will lead an interactive drum jam influenced by Maracatu samba from the northeast Brazilian state of Pernambuco, in a route that kicks off from Travers Park and heads along the newly created 34th Avenue Open Street in Jackson Heights.

a-? 6 PM - 7:30 PM Mass Appeal Harmonicas (Central Park, Pond Lawns)

Musicians of all levels and ages will join together in a large group to play the harmonica in an event led by renowned harmonica virtuoso Jia-Yi He.

a-? 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM - East River Park Amphitheater (397 FDR Drive)

A multidisciplinary program choreographed by Jody Oberfelder with new music composed by Frank London and his ensemble. The work, which explores how things and people connect and fall apart, is inspired by Rube Goldberg, the object artist whose inventive contraptions and cartoons were a reaction to and product of the machine age.

a-? 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM - Wake Up! Wake Up! A Choral Tapestry Honoring Our Earth (Richard Robertson Amphitheater at Harlem's Marcus Garvey Park. Enter at Mt. Morris Park West and 122nd Street)

This interdisciplinary program presented in partnership with Diana Wege/The Earth Requiem Project celebrates the Environmental Justice movement with a musical message transcending class, race, religious, and political boundaries. It features performances by an 18-voice professional choir.

a-? 7 PM - 8 PM - Darmstadt's 17th Annual in C (Harborview Lawn at Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier, 80 Furman St.)

The Brooklyn ensemble brings together stars of the experimental music community for its critically-acclaimed interpretation of Terry Riley's 1964 masterwork of minimalism.

a-? 7 PM - 8 PM - Masayo Ishigure and MIYABI Koto Shamisen Ensemble (Bryant Park's Upper Terrace, 42nd Street Between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas)

This special program, which is presented in partnership with the Consulate General of Japan and Bryant Park, celebrates Japanese music and culture by looking back and forward.

a-? 7 PM - 8:10 PM - Mozart's Requiem (North Oculus Plaza at the World Trade Center Campus)

This year's program is being dedicated to those taken from us by COVID. Singers and instrumentalists from NYC and beyond are invited to join to both celebrate the summer solstice and fondly remember those we lost by performing Mozart's profound and solemn work, the Requiem, K626.

a-? 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM - Flowerpot Music (Prospect Park's Nethermead, 95 Prospect Park West)

Written by celebrated composer Elliot Cole and directed by percussionist Peter Ferry, this is a composition for an unlikely but beautiful percussion instrument, the flowerpot.


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