May 16, 2020
Making Make Music Day Yours
Are you planning a Make Music Day event, but not sure how to get the word out? We are here to help!
In the Media Resources section of our website you’ll find extensive materials ready to download and use, including an updated toolkit, photos, videos and more.
You’ll also find new logos and digital assets created by illustrator Daniel Greenfeld especially for this year’s socially-distanced Make Music Day. The logo, and each illustration, show the wavelengths that connect us even when we’re not in the same space.
And if you are in a city with a local Make Music chapter, you are in luck – once you’ve made plans on your city’s registration site, your local chapter will be your promotional partner. Stay in touch with them!
May 16, 2020
Track Meet
This year for Make Music Day, join composers, producers and songwriters from around the world in Track Meet, a collaborative race against the clock.
Over the course of six hours, teams of four musicians will create brand new original tracks in a creative relay. Using the virtual audio workstation SoundTrap, each musician will get 90 minutes to add their contribution before the next teammate takes over. At the end of the day, we will bounce each team’s track and host them online for everyone to hear.
Interested in joining the Track Meet? Register to be matched with a creative team or sign up with your own group of four musicians by June 7th.
See our website for full details!
May 16, 2020
Make Music Country of the Week: Germany
Germany began celebrating Make Music Day in 1985, when Munich organized its first Fête de la Musique on June 21st (using the untranslated French name). Berlin followed with its own Fête in 1995.
Twenty-five years later, the Fête de la Musique Berlin includes hundreds of performances each June 21, and there are thousands more across 70 other German cities.
In 2020, for the first time, Germany’s cities are working together to share ideas, and coordinate national initiatives on June 21, including singalongs of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy at 5pm, and a lullaby at 11pm.
Learn more at Germany’s Fête de la Musique website.
May 9, 2020
Five More National Projects
With so many concerts, year-end recitals, and summer music programs canceled this year, we feel a renewed mission to keep music alive and communities connected on June 21.
Even with social distancing in effect, there are so many ways to join Make Music Day, no matter your age, musical genre, experience, or location. Last week we previewed six new initiatives; this week we have five more:
Check them out, mark your calendar, and stay tuned for more details to come!
May 9, 2020
#MySongIsYourSong
This Make Music Day, we invite songwriters and composers of all styles and walks of life to join in a global song swap called #MySongIsYourSong.
Sign up to learn and perform a song by a local artist, and hear one of your original songs covered in return! Just register by May 21st using this form.
Partners will be carefully matched and introduced on June 5, then will share their video performances on June 21 with the hashtag #mysongisyoursong. Learn more on our website.
May 9, 2020
Make Music Artist of the Week: Elise Ecklund
Ukulele artist Elise Ecklund, a YouTube star with over 1.7 million subscribers, is one of the many Flight Ukulele artists joining this year’s massive 25×12: Live Online Lessons project for Make Music Day.
From 11am to 11pm EST, master teachers of all instruments and styles will stream group lessons on Zoom that anyone can join. A full schedule will be available in early June!
May 9, 2020
Make Music City of the Week: Davis CA
Davis, California first launched Make Music Day in 2017, when the publisher of The Davis Dirt decided to bring this international celebration to her small, progressive city. Over the last few years, Davis’s senior centers, arboretum, food coops, train station, art centers, breweries, museums, post office, and music stores have all embraced Make Music Davis and hosted musical events.
This year, community radio station KDRT has taken the lead and is laying the groundwork for a fantastic day of music making. Their Earth Day Sing Out last month, with songs made by local musicians in honor of Earth Day, shows the station’s community building spirit, with a taste of what’s to come on June 21!
Check out the Make Music Davis website here.
April 28, 2020
Six National Projects (& more to come)
Last month, we announced that Make Music Day was on for June 21, despite this year’s challenges.
And why not? Make Music Day is an invitation for everyone to make music anywhere — an idea that’s as important as ever. Around the country, musicians and organizers heeded the call and have developed creative, new, socially distanced ways for anyone to join Make Music Day 2020.
Today we are excited to preview six of these initiatives: Bash the Trash, Flowerpot Music, Global Livestream, #MySongIsYourSong, World’s Smallest Marching Band, and Young Composers Contest.
And we’ll have six more to come next week, and many more details — watch this space!
April 28, 2020
Six National Projects (& more to come)
Last month, we announced that Make Music Day was on for June 21, despite this year’s challenges.
And why not? Make Music Day is an invitation for everyone to make music anywhere — an idea that’s as important as ever. Around the country, musicians and organizers heeded the call and have developed creative, new, socially distanced ways for anyone to join Make Music Day 2020.
Today we are excited to preview six of these initiatives: Bash the Trash, Flowerpot Music, Global Livestream, #MySongIsYourSong, World’s Smallest Marching Band, and Young Composers Contest.
And we’ll have six more to come next week, and many more details — watch this space!
April 28, 2020
Young Composers Contest
In celebration of Make Music Day, and of all the young composers stuck at home this spring, Make Music Alliance is hosting a composition contest for composers aged 13-21.
Young composers are invited to write a short, 3-minute piece for SATB vocal quartet, set to William Carlos Williams’s timely poem “By the road to the contagious hospital”.
A panel of distinguished judges, made up of composers David T. Little, Ellen Reid (recipient of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music), Christopher Tin and conductor Anna Lapwood, will provide feedback and select three winning pieces and seven honorable mentions. Then all ten pieces will be professionally recorded by the all-star Make Music Quarantet, and released online for Make Music Day on June 21st.
The submission deadline is May 18th – full details are available on our website.
(Are you over 21? Be a mentor and share the contest with students and young friends!)