On April 26th, Seattle composer Nat Evans will be at Brooklyn Bridge Park presenting his new time-specific music event Blue Hour – an audience-participatory event that takes place just after sunset.

Participants will download the music for Blue Hour from his website onto their ipods and meet at the corner of Old Fulton and Water St. by 7:40pm. The assembled group will then walk into the park together and just after sunset the cue will be given to press play. Participants will then sit back and observe while listening.

This is the third in a series of time-specific listening events that Evans has written. Through his sunrise, sunset and now twilight-timed works, nature, community and subjectivity of experience are fused together to create a new way of listening to music, as well as perceiving place, space, and sound. Evans has been presenting these works across the country the last couple of years, and in the days preceding the Blue Hour event you can participate in the sunrise and sunset events as well at various locations around Brooklyn – go to natevansmusic.com for details.

Violin students of the former USSR, playing in unison, 1947, the year Prokofiev wrote Opus 115

Sergei Prokofiev is one of the world’s most performed composers — played more often by American orchestras than Haydn, Ravel, or Stravinsky –  yet one masterpiece has slipped through the cracks.

Prokofiev wrote his Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin, Opus 115 to be played in a group, but remarkably, it has never been so performed in the US.

Join Make Music New York to make history, and join violinists from the Yale School of Music to realize Prokofiev’s dream! The performance will take place outdoors in the West Village on June 21st.

For more information and to sign up, email eva.allan@yale.edu.

Make Music New York’s flagship Punk Island is back for a fifth year on Governors Island!

This “punk rockers’ paradise” (NY Times) will feature a high-energy lineup of over 50 bands curated by ABC No Rio‘s punk/hardcore collective, who have booked weekly punk shows in NYC for over 20 years.

Since the Island is closed during the week, Punk Island will take place on Sunday, June 24th. Just like the rest of MMNY, all performances are outdoors and completely free.

For more information, visit punkisland2012.org, or email punk@makemusicny.org.

Griot Summit, MMNY 2011

There’s just one week left to register for Make Music New York!

If you haven’t already, please go to makemusicny.org to create an account. It’s easy and completely free. Registration closes on April 21st.

Having problems signing up? Check your spam folder to see if our confirmation emails are ending up there. Still having problems? Email Ethan at ethan@makemusicny.org and we’ll get it sorted out right away.

MMNY MUSICIANS MUST REGISTER BY APRIL 21st!

Kongo at Flatbush Avenue, MMNY 2011

To make sure everyone has a chance to sign up, volunteers are calling last year’s musicians every evening for the next two weeks.

Join one of our phone banks, from 6-9pm at our office on 419 Lafayette Street — meet other volunteers, talk to lots of musicians, and help the festival grow!

R.S.V.P. to volunteer@makemusicny.org with your name and phone number, and we will call back and schedule you to come in.

More than 100 parks permits have been approved for Make Music New York and are now listed on our website.

Boy Problems, photo by Ervin Gaviria, MMNY 2008

These amazing park locations are open to everyone on a first-come, first-served basis. Please register at makemusicny.org/participate so you can spend Thursday, June 21st making music in the park!

Note that access to electricity in parks is not provided, so be prepared to perform “unplugged” or to bring your own power source.

If you’re a musician who needs a space that provides electricity, a sidewalk location could be a better choice. Hundreds of sidewalks outside of businesses and libraries are going online in the next week for you to choose. You can also create your own location on nearly any sidewalk you’d like, once you register — email ethan@makemusicny.org if you have questions.

Once again, registration ends April 21st.

Calling all artists!

Our friends at the Harlem Arts Festival are gearing up for their inaugural two-day event, taking place June 29th-30th at Marcus Garvey Park. The Harlem Arts Festival is a free annual festival presenting Harlem-based music, dance, theater, and visual arts.

This promises to be two great days of art and music in one of New York City’s most culturally vibrant neighborhoods.

DEADLINE: MARCH 31st! Apply here.

For more info visit: www.harlemartsfestival.com

Are you a toy piano player? Do you have your own toy piano?

This year, we need both your talents AND your instrument for a special project we’re preparing for June 21st.

If you want to have fun joining a cutting-edge, high-profile concert, can commit to one rehearsal, and are ready to spend a few hours playing music on June 21… please contact us as soon as possible!

E-mail pierre@makemusicny.org to get more details about our plan.

UPDATE: click here for more details and to sign up!

Block Parties

Cornelia Street block party, photo by Peter Matthews, MMNY '08

Each year for Make Music New York, dozens of community groups have put together musical block parties, bringing their neighbors together for Cuban jazz, electronic Gameboy music, indie rock, steel pans, hip hop, and string orchestras in streets across the city.

This year, why not your block?

To help you throw a party on your street, we’ve put together a helpful handbook, updated for 2012.

Download it here: MMNY Block Party Handbook (pdf)

Block party applications are due by March 21st to be considered for an event in June. If you’re interested in having a block party, read the handbook and contact us this week! Email ethan@makemusicny.org to get started.

Parks

In about a week, we will list over 100 New York City parks on our website for musicians and organizations to use for Make Music New York. These spaces are first come, first served — if you’re a musician who wants to perform in a park, register today, and we will send you an email as soon as the parks go live on the website.

In the meantime, please don’t use the “Create your own location” tool to register a park — only the parks we put up can be permitted for Make Music New York. (If you want to create a space on a sidewalk, plaza, garden, or closed-off street… that can work!)

EMEFE at The Winery (Harlem), MMNY 2012

Multiple Venues

Lots of MMNY locations are managed by Business Improvement Districts, library systems, and other groups that oversee multiple outdoor locations. We are working on a tool right now to allow these groups to register all of their locations at once on our website. If you have more than three locations and are interested in having an account that lets you manage them all at once, email aaron@makemusicny.org.

Volunteering

Right now, we need volunteers to help organize MMNY in neighborhoods throughout the city, and to make phone calls to musicians from our Astor Place office. Email makemusicny@gmail.com if you’d like to join us.

Manhattan Samba in Cadman Plaza, MMNY 2012

Sign up today for Make Music New York!

If you’re a musician looking for a place to play — or if you have a garden, restaurant, block party, sidewalk, or other outdoor space and want musicians — you can sign up, contact possible matches, and find what you’re looking for.

Musicians can also register their own spaces, and locations can register their own artists. It’s easy and it’s free. Once you’re matched up, Make Music New York organizers will confirm the arrangements and get you the permits you’ll need. Everything is explained when you sign up, or you can check out our FAQ.

All MMNY 2012 registration will go through our website, though neighborhood organizers will be available to help you navigate the process. Registration will close on April 21st. Special thanks to Time Out New York and programmer Colin Kennedy for developing our registration process this year.

Sign up today!