Health & Fitness
The Secret French Origin Of The “Make Music New York” Festival
"Make Music New York" may contain "New York" in its name, but it is only to hide its Frenchness!
We can safely say that New York City is a fairly musical city. I often marvel at the level of raw talent and creativity that one encounters on a daily basis in the subway stations, streets, squares and parks of the city.
This already impressive offer will literally explode on Thursday June 21 thanks to Make Music New York, a festival that will flood the streets of NYC with more than a thousand free concerts from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m.
The official festivities include Jazz music on the High Line, mass concerts featuring single instruments, a Gospel Parade in Park Slope, the West Point Band, Montclair State University Symphonic Band (playing from rowboats in Central Park) and a 18-hours composition by Erik Satie on Wall Street. In addition to all this, anyone with an instrument and/or a fair voice and guts is welcome to join the fun.
What might not be known to the common new yorker, is that Make Music New York is not a local invention but rather, a spin-off a 30-years old French socialist-government tradition, which attempted to address the realisation that, at the time, “the music [was] everywhere and the concert nowhere”. The Fête de la Musique was launched on June 21, 1982, the day of summer solstice, a pagan night which recalls the ancient tradition of Saint John’s feasts.
It was exported in 1985 with the European Year of Music. In fifteen years, the Fête de la Musique would be taken up in over one hundred countries around the world.
Nowadays, the Fête de la Musique is so successful in France that it has reached somewhat of a saturation point with bands often playing a couple of feet from each other. The lack of curfew makes the Fête a universal sleepless night leaving most cities in the country trashed come morning.
However, it seems that the initial spirit of the Fête de la Musique is alive in NYC-- the movement grows bigger each year and it has been a joyful, fun and kid-friendly day since it started. And if you want to make some real noise, Punk Island (3 days later on Governors Island) is for you.
Finally, the French consulate is adding its touch by proposing a jazz concert by French musicians Ibrahim Maalouf and Jean-Christophe Maillard.
