MAKE MUSIC WINTER In New York City To Feature 16 Participatory Musical Parades Across The City

Make Music Winter, a free, outdoor music-making celebration featuring 16 participatory musical parades across New York City that bring communities together, returns on Friday, Dec. 21 from 12pm to 8pm.

The all-day musical celebration on the winter solstice brings out New Yorkers of all ages and musical ability to sing, play, march and dance their way across streets, parks, plazas and other public spaces across the five boroughs. Make Music Winter, which launched in NYC in 2011 and is expanding nationwide with nearly 30 U.S. cities participating, is the cold-weather counterpart to Make Music Day, the annual global celebration of music occurring on June 21, the summer solstice.

Make Music Winter's innovative projects transform New York's cityscape for a single day and have become a hallmark of the holiday season. Make Music Winter in NYC is presented by The NAMM Foundation and produced by Make Music New York.

Highlights of 2018 Make Music Winter in NYC will include:

12 pm: Characters of the Dance

Sara Delano Roosevelt Park, Lower East Side

Become a character in this special performance of Baroque flute music and dance during which costumed models will gesture with early ballet steps representing different "characters."

12 pm: Queens Second Line Swing

Corona Plaza to the Louis Armstrong House Museum, Corona, Queens

Singers, jazz instrumentalists and dancers of all skill levels are welcome and encouraged to join this participatory New Orleans-style jazz parade featuring rambunctious, soulful songs from Roz Nixon's musical "Dedication to Louis Armstrong."

12pm: Sonic Meditation: The Heart Chant

Oculus Plaza

The Heart Chant (2001) is a participatory Deep Listening meditation, an offering of sonic healing for all beings through vocalization and listening. Written by Pauline Oliveros in response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, The Heart Chant's simple instructions invite any and all to participate in creating community through sound.

12pm: Winterize

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

An interactive song cycle brought to life during which audience members will provide the musical accompaniment via hand-held radios that emit the original music accompaniment.

12:30 pm Winter Solstice Procession Will Epstein in Collaboration with Kenny Wollesen Madison Square Park

This piece, conceived by Will Epstein and performed in collaboration with Kenny Wollesen and his group, was created to be a ritualized induction and celebration of Arlene Schechet's work. The performers will communicate with each other from varying distances in the park, blending in with sounds of the space as well as playing through them.

4 pm: Solstice Soul Train

Uptown Grand Central community plaza and along East 125th Street

Put some soul into your holiday season by hopping on board the Solstice Soul Train and getting ready to party! The "trains" consist of musicians that will circulate along the sidewalks of 125th Street between Fifth Avenue and Lexington Avenue, making stops along the way.

4:32 pm (sunset): Flatfoot Flatbush

Departs from 354 Flatbush Avenue through Prospect Heights

Dancers, fiddlers and pickers will parade down Flatbush Avenue playing old-time tunes while flat footing, a form of percussive dancing from Appalachia. Participants will learn the steps of this rhythmic dance form and have a chance to practice with the Flatfoot Flatbush String Band!

4:32 pm (sunset): Kalimbascope

Columbus Circle and through Central Park

In this "Public Participatory Sound Installation," composer/conductor J.C. King will lead a procession of players plucking kalimbas - an evolution of the African mbira, or thumb piano. The instruments are then gently amplified through the "Kalimbascope," a mobile live-sound system that transforms the emissions of the ancient folk instruments into clouds of sparkling harmony and tropical ambiance in an inclusive action of presence, abstraction, meditation and catharsis.

5 pm: Winter Luminaria with Tilted Axes

Sasaki Garden in Washington Square Village through Greenwich Village and back

Composer Patrick Grant and Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars, in partnership with NYU Faculty Housing Happenings, will present an evening of innovative musical performance.

5:30 pm: Bell by Bell

Astor Place Plaza through the East Village

Artist Tom Peyton and friends will lead this community parade through the East Village. Participants are given a color-coded hand-bell that plays a specific note. A team of conductors wave corresponding colored flags in time with a series of specially curated compositions.

5:30 pm: Pilgrimage

Riverside Park

Under the guidance of conductor James John, Director of the Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, headlamp-clad singers will walk a route along Riverside Park while singing medieval melodies once sung on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.

5:45 pm: The Gaits: A High Line Soundwalk

The High Line, Gansevoort Street entrance

Paraders will attach their smart phones to small, wearable speakers and use a free app that captures the GPS coordinates and velocities of their movements to trigger a variety of twinkling metallic sounds, electric guitar chords, dulcimer notes, water splashes, car horns and applause - empowering marchers to effortlessly make music while interacting with their environment and each other.

6 pm: Melrose Parranda

Departs from El Coquí Casita and Community Garden in the Melrose section of the Bronx

The Bronx Music Heritage Center will hold their annual parranda - the Puerto Rican tradition involving processions of carolers - throughout the historic Melrose neighborhood.

6 pm: The Mobile Hallelujah

Verdi Square, Jefferson Market Garden, Union Square and in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this participatory choral program, producer Melissa Gerstein and conductor Douglas Anderson team up to bring Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" - from his Messiah oratorio, the oldest continuously performed piece of classical music, out of the concert hall and onto city streets.

6 pm: Ukulele Caroling

Washington Square Park

Calling all ukes! Players of all skill levels are welcomed to join the first-ever winter solstice gathering of ukuleles in a Village parade featuring classic holiday and repertoire tunes for the ukulele and is for players of all ages.

6:30 pm: Renegade Parade by HONK NYC

Departs from Staten Island Ferry Terminal Bar in Manhattan via ferry to St. George neighborhood of Staten Island

The team behind HONK NYC, which brings street band music and spectacle to audiences citywide, will lead a pop-up parade as it moves from location to location, switching bands, instruments, transportation methods and vibes along the way.