Dear friends,

We hope this finds you safe and healthy.

Like all of you, we are grappling with the huge impact COVID-19 is having around the world, and in our daily lives. As we plan for Make Music Day on 21 June 2020, we don’t know if public gatherings will be feasible at that date, or if everyone will be “social distancing” and spending a lot of time at home.

Despite this uncertainty, we wanted to let you know that Make Music Day will still be happening on 21 June across the world. Unlike traditional music festivals, Make Music Day is an open invitation for everyone to make music anywhere and everywhere. We hope to be taking over the streets with music on 21 June, but if we can’t, we invite you to join one of the online Make Music Day initiatives that will take place no matter what.

• Live From Home Challenge: Record a musical performance at home on 21 June, and tag three friends to challenge them to respond with their own performances. Download our live streaming toolkit.
• Go Rural: Get outdoors and explore nature. Find a remote location and live stream your performance from a beach, mountain, lighthouse etc. Download the Go Rural toolkit.
• Online Music Lessons: Teachers around the world will be offering free, online lessons for a variety of instruments on 21 June.
• Street Studios: Be part of a completely improvised music creation session! Record any sound or musical material on 21 June and upload it to one of the “Street Studio” producers, then watch the producer’s livestream as they incorporate it into a musical track created on the spot, using only the submitted materials.
• Global Livestream: a day-long video stream on 21 June will show the rich diversity of live Make Music Day performances around the world.
• Bring me Sunshine: download one of the many free arrangements of Bring me Sunshine and live stream your performance from wherever you are.

More details for each of these initiatives will be announced soon. (Do you have other ideas? Email us and let us know.)

In this time of social distancing, music’s powerful role to bring us together as a community is more important than ever. While physical public gatherings may not be currently accessible, we can still stay connected online and celebrate music.

Of course, we still hope to come out together in public on 21 June — in the coming weeks, look for announcements with updates. But above all, we are committed to supporting the health and well-being of the public during this challenging time, and will follow the guidance of government health departments to make sure everyone stays safe.

Sincerely,

Make Music Day UK

Make Music Alliance (U.S.)

Make Music Australia

Fête de la Musique Deutschland

Confederation of European Music Industries (Italy)

PS: if you are stuck at home in the coming weeks or months, post a video of yourself making music with the tag #makemusicday and we will share it!

PPS: Wash your hands.