About Make Music

Make Music Philly 2013. Photo: Rich McKie

Each Make Music city is independently organized. Often it’s a local community group, media outlet, arts presenter, government agency, or civic leader who champions the musical holiday in their hometown.

The nonprofit Make Music Alliance exists to serve these Make Music organizers around the world. Its goals are to promote Make Music participation, provide tools to help manage the event in each community, and foster collaboration, mentorship, and mutual support among its members.

Who can join the Alliance?
Membership Benefits
Membership Dues
International Partners
Launching the Holiday in a New City
Make Music Alliance: Team
Make Music Alliance: Board of Directors
Make Music Alliance: Advisory Council

Who can join the Alliance?

Membership in the Make Music Alliance is open to organizers who coordinate events that are:

free (no tickets, no musicians or audience members are charged), and
participatory (open to any musicians at any level who wish to participate),
featuring live music performances
for all ages and genres (no restrictions on kinds of music)
at multiple venues (not just one concert in one location)
in public spaces (that are accessible and welcoming to everyone)
on June 21.

While our current focus is on North America, we welcome members from all over the world.

Membership Benefits

Make Music Alliance members each receive:

A complete software package to help manage the event in your city. The package includes an online matchmaking and registration tools for participants, a complete listings platform, dynamically-created promotional posters for each participant, and more. (Contact us for a demo of the software.)
A customized, elegant website for each city, integrating the software tools, hosted on our site and controlled directly by each member
Tech support and general consulting via phone from the Alliance’s professional staff
Weekly and monthly mentorship via phone for new cities from experienced city organizers
Admission to the annual two-day Make Music Alliance conference in January
Assistance with Mass Appeals and other national creative projects
Access to a library of materials from other cities, including sample press releases, legal contracts, e-newsletter language, production timelines, sponsorship decks, and grant applications
Assistance with grant writing and sponsorship opportunities
One year of fiscal sponsorship for new U.S. organizations awaiting 501(c)(3) status
Inclusion in promotional campaigns to benefit member cities.

Membership benefits are good for one calendar year upon payment of dues and signing a membership agreement.

Membership Dues

Dues are set on a sliding scale, based on each organization’s Make Music budget. Non-profit organizations receive discounted rates.

Budget	Non-profit	For-profit
Under $3,000	$325	$390
$3,000 – $5,999	$500	$600
$6,000 – $7,999	$675	$810
$8,000 – $9,999	$850	$1,020
$10,000 – $14,999	$1,250	$1,500
$15,000 – $19,999	$1,750	$2,100
$20,000 – $24,999	$2,250	$2,700
$25,000 – $29,999	$2,750	$3,300
$30,000 – $34,999	$3,250	$3,900
$35,000 – $39,999	$3,650	$4,380
$40,000 – $99,999	$4,000	$4,800
$100,000 and up	$5,000	$6,000

Click Here to Join!

For organizations that exist solely to coordinate Make Music celebrations, the program budget is considered to be the same as the organization’s full expense budget. For organizations running multiple programs, the program budget includes all specific Make Music costs, plus other expenses allocated to the project (such as staff salaries and overhead). We rely on members to provide the most accurate budget estimates they can.

Organizations in the process of non-profit incorporation are charged the non-profit rates. Organizations coordinating Make Music for the first time are considered to be in the lowest budget category.

International Partners

Those who are coordinating Make Music Day for a whole country are invited to become International Partners of the Make Music Alliance.

International Partners collaborate closely with the Alliance. They are featured on the Make Music Day website and in our press releases, given dedicated space on the Global Livestream, and meet regularly via Zoom to guide international Make Music Day initiatives.

Annual dues for International Partners are $175 (USD). Please note that other benefits listed above, such as software support and donated instruments, are only available to full Make Music Alliance members.

If you are interested in becoming an International Partner, please contact Aaron Friedman at aaron@makemusicday.org.

Launching the Holiday in a New City

The Alliance welcomes inquiries from those who want assistance in bringing Make Music to their city. Please email Matt Fox at matt@makemusicday.org to get started!

Make Music Alliance: Team

Aaron Friedman (Executive Director) is the founder of Make Music New York, a nonprofit organization that produces a city-wide outdoor musical celebration in New York on June 21st. Launched in 2007, the celebration has grown to become the most expansive musical event in the city’s history. In 2002, while studying composition at Columbia University, he founded an environmental advocacy group called “Silent Majority” to combat noise pollution in New York. The group’s research prompted new legislation in the City Council to regulate car alarms, and its lobbying efforts led to the bill’s passage in 2004.

Matt Fox (Deputy Director) is the owner of Fox in a Box Marketing & PR, co-founder of Make Music Nashville and a contributing writer for Nashville’s alt-weekly, Nashville Scene. He has won first place for his cherry tomatoes in the TN State Fair five years in a row.

Catherine Sikora Mingus (Special Projects Manager) was first electrified by the sound of air vibrating in a metal tube when, as a child, she heard the wind playing tones and overtones in a metal gate. She has devoted her life to researching the magic of that sound as a tenor and soprano saxophonist, improviser, composer, and educator.

Frank Garcia (Marketing and Communications Consultant) is the co-owner of Peruke, a ukulele store and community based in Peru which is currently leading the ukulele wave in LATAM. He is also the head of Marketing & Artist Relations at Flight Ukulele, where he currently works with over 100 artists around the world and has helped Flight become the most followed ukulele community in social media.

Andria Nicodemou (International Special Projects Consultant) is a multifaceted musician and educator from Cyprus, specializing in vibraphone, improvisation and interactive performances. Her music is characterized by “open-ended play,” where movement, theatricality and sound are equally important. Her work has been presented in Europe, USA and Canada. She is the co-founder of the award-winning Thread Ensemble and is the founder of Make Music Cyprus.

Make Music Alliance: Board of Directors

Andrea Berman (Secretary) has spent her career working in philanthropy, leading grantmaking at family, community and private foundations. Andrea’s expertise is in nonprofit management and she has led organizations and taught others best practices. Currently, Andrea is the Grants Manager at the Future of Life Institute and is responsible for planning, administering and implementing philanthropic grants programs aimed at reducing global catastrophic risk.

Joe Carroll is a producer, composer, ad executive and founder of the Manhattan Producers Alliance. He has written and produced hundreds of songs for TV and film including award-winning projects for Disney, Nickelodeon, PBS, Sesame Workshop and The Jim Henson Company. His career highlights include performing with Zippy the Chimp, a tuxedo-clad chimpanzee whose skills included drinking bourbon and roller-skating, sometimes simultaneously.

Aaron Friedman (President)

Andy Horwitz Andrew Horwitz (Vice-President) is a cultural consultant, creative strategist and writer living in Los Angeles. He has served as the VP, Director of Programs at the Skirball Cultural Center, and from 2011 – 2013 he curated and produced Manhattan’s free, outdoor, multidisciplinary arts festival, The River To River Festival, for LMCC where he served as Director of Public Programs. He has worked producer at Performance Space. 122, curator of the PRELUDE Festival at the Graduate Center at CUNY and as Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Foundation for Jewish Culture among other positions. He is also the founder of arts website Culturebot.org, launched in 2003, and was a 2014 recipient of the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

Jack Lang is President of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. In 1982, while serving as France’s Minister of Culture, he created the Fête de la Musique. Along with his celebrated career in government (including eight years as Minister of Culture and four years as Minister of Education), he was the founder and director of the World Theater Festival at Nancy, and Professor of International Law at Nancy and Paris X University-Nanterre.

Max Lester is the Director, Program Management & Business Operations at The Orchard – Sony Music Entertainment, a global leader in music distribution and artist & label services. Max graduated from New York University in 2014 with a double major in Global Liberal Studies & Spanish/Latin American Studies, and received his MA in 2016 from University College London in Art Conservation. Before moving to New York, Max attended the Lycée Français de San Francisco.

Mike Rosenthal is the Head of Strategic Marketing for Mick Management, overseeing brand partnerships and strategy for acts like Childish Gambino, Walk the Moon, Animal Collective, Leon Bridges, and many others. Previously Mike spent five years handling brand partnerships and digital strategy for the band OK Go and running their record label, Paracadute.

Subhankar Sinha (Treasurer) is a Director at PwC in New York. He co-leads technology innovation efforts in Financial Markets with a focus on developing platforms by leveraging Blockchain, Smart Contracts and other emerging technologies. Subhankar has 18 years of experience providing consulting services to large global companies across various industry sectors. He also works with emerging technology startups to help define their value proposition, business model and go-to-market strategies.