We are delighted to announce this year’s lineup for Make Music Winter: 20 cities with free, participatory parades and performances on Saturday, December 21!

• Pete Wyer’s “Street Motets for New York City,” one of 10 winter parades in New York NY, will synchronize 25 pairs of choristers, who will sing while walking on separate hour-long routes through the streets of Greenwich Village, and delight bystanders with unexpected bursts of harmony as their paths cross.
  
• Montclair NJ‘s 8th annual Make Music Winter celebrates the season with six music-making events, including Phil Kline’s boombox parade Unsilent Night, and The World Turned Upside Down, a participatory jam with Appalachian, bluegrass, and zydeco songs of protest.
  
• The first Make Music Winter in Chattanooga TN brings interactive music to an outdoor market, a soup kitchen, a music museum, and many more spots around town.
  
• Slovenia’sFlight Ukulele joins this year’s Make Music Winter with a national program, donating 110 all-weather travel ukes for winter parades in Aberdeen and Gig Harbor (WA), Atlanta (GA), Germantown (TN), Milwaukee (WI), Montclair (NJ), and Surry County (NC).
  
• AndRhythm Band Instruments partners again to provide free hand percussion for events in twelve cities, including Kinston (NC), Land O’ Lakes (WI), Middleton (WI), Muskogee (OK), Ossining (NY), Salado (TX) and Salem (OR).

Of course, there is so much more, from caroling parties to parrandas. Visit makemusicday.org/winter for the complete schedule!

Make Music Day’s winter counterpart returns on Saturday, December 21!

Make Music Winter is a joyful, free outdoor musical festivity, celebrated since 2011 on the winter solstice, and reaching over 30 U.S. cities last year.

From the beginning, Make Music Winter has focused on musical parades that anyone can join, from a procession of strolling electric guitarists, to a peloton of bicycle bell players. These mobile events create a memorable spectacle all over town, and keep participants warm when the weather is cold.

On December 21, Make Music Winter returns to its parade roots. Each Make Music Winter city will include at least one mobile event that turns audiences into music makers, organized through our network of Make Music chapters and free for all to join!

The full schedule will be announced the week of November 18th. Stay tuned!

We’d like to take a moment to thank the NAMM Foundation for its tremendous continued support of Make Music Day!

Among the foundation’s 32 grant recipients – just announced for 2025 – are the national Make Music Day coordinators for Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

No one does more than the NAMM Foundation to support Make Music Day here and around the world. Just like us, they are committed to creating more music makers across the lifespan of learning, by promoting the pleasures and benefits of making music.

Thank you to the NAMM Foundation!

Congratulations to all who took part in last month’s Make Music Day!

Over 5,000 music-making events took place in the U.S. on June 21, along with performances by thousands more musicians in countries around the world who celebrated the day.

Check out 235 press clips about Make Music Day 2024, from media outlets in 70 U.S. cities, to learn about events you may have missed!

Thank you to the Levitt Foundation for supporting Make Music Day!

We love Levitt’s mission, which is to strengthen the social fabric of America through the power of free, live music. In 2024, Levitt is supporting nonprofits in 45 communities coast to coast to present 650+ free outdoor concerts, attracting people of all ages and backgrounds and fostering more equitable, healthy, and thriving communities.

Learn more at levitt.org.

Once again we spotlight Mass Appeal, the 16-year Make Music Day tradition that brings together people of all levels and ages to make music in large, single-instrument groups.

And year after year, no Mass Appeal instrument has been more popular than the harmonica. Tomorrow, for the twelfth straight year, leading harmonica brand Hohner is generously providing over 2,000 free Blues Band harps for Make Music Day events in 61 cities, allowing countless first-time players to start developing the skills to make music throughout the year.

Thank you, Hohner!

Makey Makey joins Make Music Day for the 3rd time in 2024. Using this circuit board, plugged into a computer, performers of all levels can turn everyday objects into touchpads and use them to make music.

This year, Makey Makey is donating kits to seven Make Music chapters and helping them make homemade giant floor pianos on June 21.

Thank you, Makey Makey!

After eleven years of celebration by Make Music Montclair, the rest of New Jersey is coming to the Make Music party!

This year, with support from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, you’ll be able to check out the musical takeover of a Paterson shopping mall, mobile “Car-aoke” in Fair Lawn, the NJ Youth Jazz Orchestra in Englewood, a “Midtown Make Music Day” in Atlantic City, an Open Decks DJ session in Newark, and over 75 performances at 30 venues in Montclair.

More about Make Music New Jersey