Fête de la Musique

The Fête de la Musique, also known as The worldwide celebration of music, is an annual music festival taking place on June 21 in cities around the world. It was created by the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang.

History

In October 1981, Maurice Fleuret became Director of Music and Dance at Minister of Culture Jack Lang’s request, and applied his reflections to the musical practice and its evolution: « the music everywhere and the concert nowhere«. When he discovered, in a 1982 study on the cultural habits of the French, that five million people, one child out of two, played a musical instrument, he began to dream of a way to bring people out on the streets. It first took place in 1982 in Paris as the Fête de la Musique.

Ever since, the festival has become an international phenomenon, celebrated on the same day in more than 800 cities in 110 countries, including Germany, Italy, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, South Africa, Australia, Vietnam, Congo, Cameroon, Mauritius, Fiji, Colombia, Chile, Nepal, and Japan.

Its purpose is promoting music in 2 ways:

• Amateur and professional musicians are encouraged to perform in the streets. The slogan Faites de la musique (Make music), a homophone of Fête de la Musique, is used to promote this goal.
• Many free concerts are organized, making all genres of music accessible to the public. Two of the caveats to being sanctioned by the official Fête de la Musique organization in Paris are that all concerts must be free to the public, and all performers donate their time for free. This is true of most participating cities, now, as well.

Despite there being a large tolerance about the performance of music by the general public of amateurs in public areas after usual hours, the noise restrictions still apply, and can cause some establishments to be forbidden to open and broadcast music out of their doors without prior authorization. So the prefectures of police in France can still forbid them to install any audio hardware in the street.

So, Make Music Day is held annually on June 21 and is a global celebration of music making. Taking place in more than 110 countries and 800 cities around the world, it is the perfect opportunity to meet and create new music makers.