Make Music Day 2020: The Vermont Update

Make Music Day will return to Vermont on June 21. Due to present restrictions on social gatherings, Make Music VT will not include the large concerts, festivals, and street music of years past. Instead this year’s Make Music VT will take a virtual approach to encourage all people of all musical abilities to celebrate the joy of making music!

Make Music Day will once again return as global event, with over 120 countries participating. 85 US cities, and the entire states of Connecticut, Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Vermont.

Last year’s list of events included sunrise jam sessions, lakeside song circles, a jiving Montepelier, and a rockin’ Church Street complete with foot tappin’ jazz and Led Zeppelin covers which made you wonder if Jimmy Page had really flown across the Atlantic.

The celebration featured an international live-stream, highlighting events around the globe. Suffice it to say, live-streaming will return en masse this year, as all events will take place in a virtual setting.

Beards and Glasses performing on stream at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington during Make Music VT 2019.

This year’s event will include two new programs for artists to participate in:

Track Meet: teams of four composers will create songs in a relay. Using the virtual audio workstation, SoundTrap, each artist has ninety minutes to make their contribution before passing it on to the next team member. At the end of the day, Make Music Day will host each team’s song for everyone to hear! Interested? You can register as a team or as an individual and be matched with others, and the deadline for registration is June 7th. For Track Meet’s registration details, and more information, see Make Music Day’s official site.

#MySongIsYourSong: musicians anywhere can submit a song they wrote at makemusicday.org/songswap. Songs are shared between two musicians, and each one records themselves performing the other’s song. The deadline to sign up is May 21! Sign up here.

Big Heavy World will also be hosting its own live-stream, bringing together acts from across the state. Multiple studios from around Vermont will each have an hour and a half segment on our main stream. Studios currently in the lineup include West Street Digital Recording in St. Albans, Boarding Gates Studio in Northfield, and The Underground recording studio in Randolph.

Make Music Day has been going strong since 1982, and this year won’t be an exception!

Check out Make Music VT’s Facebook page for regular updates.

Vermont’s event registration page is currently under construction, but this shouldn’t stop you! If you have an idea for an event, feel free to spread the word on your own! The registration link will be announced as soon as it’s live.

Make Music Day in Vermont is sponsored by:
Vermont Public Radio
The Vermont Department of Libraries
NAMM Foundation
Calamity & Crowe’s Trading Post

Text by Luke Vidic.