Now in its eleventh year, Make Music New York, “the largest music event ever to grace Gotham” (Metro New York), is a unique festival of free concerts in public spaces throughout the five boroughs of New York City, all on June 21st, the first day of summer. MMNY takes place simultaneously with similar festivities in more than 700 cities around the world — a global celebration of music making. Compl
etely different from a typical music festival, Make Music New York is open to anyone who wants to take part. From 10 in the morning to 10 at night, every kind of musician — young and old, amateur and professional, of every musical persuasion — pours onto streets, sidewalks, parks, and plazas to share their music with friends, neighbors, and strangers. Thousands of amateur musicians take the opportunity to play in public spaces, often for the biggest crowds of their lives. Professional musicians perform for new audiences, who come out from under their headphones to hear unfamiliar groups risk-free. And everyone is invited to sing along and enjoy the first day of summer. Among the over 1,200 concerts each year, MMNY includes a number of special projects: “Mass Appeal,” where hundreds of musicians band together to perform massive pieces written for a single type of instrument; “Punk Island“; and others listed here. Along with concerts by individual artists, dozens of New York cultural institutions took part — including Carnegie Hall, Friends of the High Line, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Joe’s Pub, SummerStage, and more.
