Make Music VT is going virtual this year in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Make Music VT is part of Make Music Day, the worldwide music celebration held each June 21, the summer solstice. Typically featuring free outdoor concerts, performances, music lessons, jam sessions and other musical events on streets, sidewalks, parks and public spaces in Vermont and across the U.S. This year’s Make Music Day will take a virtual approach to encourage all people, of all musical abilities, to celebrate the joy of making music.
Over 85 U.S. cities and the entire states of Connecticut, Hawaii, Vermont and Wisconsin will take part in Make Music Day 2020, demonstrating the power of music to unite and uplift people, spread joy and build community amid this challenging and unprecedented time. Make Music Day began in France in 1982 as the Fête de la Musique, and has spread to over 1,000 cities across 120 countries.
Last year’s Make Music VT festival featured lake-side song circles, groups composing songs at sunrise, and numerous bands playing from porches, stoops, curbs, bars, and restaurants. 2020’s celebration hopes to capture the same spirit while adhering to Vermont’s physical distancing and crowd size guidelines.
This year’s event welcomes live performances by artists across the state who choose to perform while mindful of public health guidelines, for small audiences like family and neighbors, but Big Heavy World strongly encourages hosting independent live-streams. Musicians who live-stream could use the hashtag #MAKEMUSICDAY and #MAKEMUSICVT and share their stream to the Make Music VT Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MakeMusicVT/.
From noon until 6 p.m. Big Heavy World will host a live-stream featuring studios from across the state which will each host artists local to their region. Participating studios include Boarding Gate Studios in Northfield; West Street Digital Recording in St. Albans; The Underground Recording Studio in Randolph; and Robot Dog Studio and A9 Studio in Burlington. The livestream will be available at bigheavyworld.com; and Big Heavy World’s Facebook, Instagram, Mixcloud and YouTube channels.
As the COVID-19 emergency unfolded, the volunteers of Big Heavy World explored many live-streaming technologies and consumer platforms in this evolving industry. They’ll be using a combination of in-house server applications and a multistream service provider to unite streams from different locations into the statewide program and distribute it to all of Big Heavy World’s social media and video outlets simultaneously.
Artists, venues, and organizers can register their independent events at vt.makemusicday.org.
A full schedule of events will be posted at https://bigheavyworld.com/makemusic
Make Music VT is sponsored by Vermont Public Radio, The Vermont Department of Libraries, NAMM Foundation, and Calamity & Crowe’s Trading Post.
For more information contact James Lockridge, jim@bigheavyworld.com, (802) 865-1140.
