Make Music Madison returns to fill city with song

Make Music Madison poster (Courtesy: Make Music Madison)

Summer is time for outdoor music in Madison. Saturday is the Summer Solstice, and the season opens with the city-wide Make Music Madison festival.

This year will be the second annual Make Music Madison, which allows any musical artist or group to perform almost anywhere. The solstice festival started in Paris in 1982 with the Fete de la Musique where anyone could perform music at any venue. Since then, over 800 cities all over the world started making music and celebrating the longest day of the year.

A group called One Solstice developed technology that allows anyone to register a venue, such as a park or their front porch, and anyone to register as an artist.

“It’s match making technology that connects the artists to a venue to help register everyone and schedule performances so that the event runs smoothly,” said Taylor Horsager, director of festival marketing for One Solstice.

Last year at Make Music Madison there were over 250 concerts all over the city, this year Horsager estimates that more artists – some have estimated upwards of 370 -- will perform.

One of those groups is UW-Madison based REthink, an environmental group that signed up to participate in January. REthink collected over 100 pieces of recycled material and created instruments out of them, said Andrea Perkins, a member of the group.

“Our instruments will allow people watching the music to get involved,” said Perkins. “This event fit perfectly with REthink’s mission of bringing communities together for a cause and allowed us to show how to incorporate sustainability into any event. We’re very excited to be a part of this celebration.”

Horsager said one goal for the event to help organizations use music to gather, and raise awareness about issues important to them.

“We want to involve different cultures, organizations and this year I wanted to work with students at the University. I called on REthink Wisconsin because they are a forward thinking group of students who know how to promote a cause while appropriately promoting their mission,” said Horsager.

REthink will be on South Hamilton at the State Capital Sidewalk from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. handing out their instruments.

“Music opens the door for more art forms and gets more people involved,” said Horsager. “The Make Music events are about celebrating one day with millions of people all around the world for music, culture and happiness.”

Next year, One Solstice hopes to work with REthink and other student groups to create “Junk Art”. “’Junk Art’ is a sculpture made out of recycled materials that you can move and that you can bang on to create music,” explained Perkins. “We’re hoping to work on some of these next year so we can bring them to some of the venues and allow spectators to participate.”

Make Music Madison begins at 7:15 a.m. at the Wisconsin Center for Music Education Fun Run/Walk event and will continue all day all over Madison. Please visit, http://www.makemusicmadison.org/2014-performances/ for specific performance times, artists’ biographies and venues.

A free “Solstice Music Festival” mobile application for iPhones or Android is also available. It features maps showing where all the venues are, who is performing and a little bit about the artist.