Make Music Downey
by Lorine Parks
Carol Kearns and Bea Romano from the Downey Arts Coalition announced Downey’s newest exciting event, Make Music Downey. If they had composed a want ad, it would look like this:
EVENT DETAILS
MAKE MUSIC DOWNEY
CALL FOR ARTISTS:
“MAKE MUSIC DOWNEY is looking for musicians, bands, and singers to perform June 8, 2013. MAKE MUSIC DOWNEY will be held downtown and around town Downey, CA, from 11 AM - 6 PM. ALL styles and genres welcome. Become part of this great event as a performer, sponsor or volunteer. Please visit us at www.MakeMusicDowney.org and LIKE us on Facebook to keep up with every new performer and venue as they are added!”
This one-day June music festival is fashioned after the original Summer Solstice Day Festival, Fete de la Music, which began in Paris in 1982. People enjoyed walking from bistro to patisserie or sitting with a glass of wine, listening to music being played on the sidewalks of the cafes.
Since then, cities all over the world have held simultaneous street parties, in the spirit of the feeling of the wonderful one-ness of humanity that music gives to us all. Stockholm was first, holding a Make Music Stockholm, then New York, and now among others there is Pasadena and now there is Downey.
The event is no longer held simultaneously around the world, but the idea is there, the free participation of professional and amateurs, all who love music.
Bagpipes, violins, guitars, Sousa-Pallooza, garage bands, hip-hop, mariachi: there will be music outside everywhere. Performances will auditioned, and then held all day long on two stages on the lawn of the First Presbyterian Church on Downey Avenue at Seventh Street, with the cooperation of the First Baptist Church, and Our Lady of Perpetual will help by providing parking and lawn canopies. Admission to all events is free, and donations are encouraged but not essential.
As an adjunct to this ambulatory event, Downey Gateway restaurants, Porto’s, Stat’s burgers and others will be open with food and side walk seating.
The organizers are still looking for an Irish group, and blue grass and country. They would love a French accordionist, a Hungarian trumpet player, anything but electronic music. And even that, if it is, say, as a running bass accompaniment to an instrument, is welcome.
Music is the universal language, so the more ethnic-flavored the selections, the wider the spectrum of the rainbow.
Club members received this idea enthusiastically, and members urged other members with special talents to sign up. Dale Self was mentioned as being a master of country songs. Perhaps the Club could work up a barbershop quartet. Judge Phil is known for his professional bass voice. The challenge is here.