| October 10, 2008 | to | October 12, 2008 |
Dear Friends,
We hope that your year has been filled with music, the joy of community, and acts of resistance. We are writing to announce the third HONK! Festival and to ask for your help.
This year’s HONK! will be held on October 10-12 in Davis Square. More than two dozen bands will come together to celebrate and inspire the independence of our community:
· Friday: Workshops and a symposium on “Politics and Festival” at Tufts, where community members and activists converge to tackle the challenges faced by radical street bands.
· Saturday: Free music for all! From noon until 9pm, 25 bands will play in 6 outdoor locations throughout Davis Square.
· Sunday: At noon, we’ll parade from Davis to Harvard Square, to “Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes and Feet.” And Sunday evening will bring the return of the popular closing concert and jam at the VFW Dilboy Hall.
This year’s line-up of bands is awe-inspiring. Each band brings its own style of music, performance, and spirit. The 35-member Titubanda, known for community involvement and eclectic repertoire, will make its way from Rome’s streets and squares for its first U.S. appearance. Tri-Battery Pops, the first downtown NYC volunteer community band in a century, formed after the devastation of 9/11, will bring its gazebo tunes to our streets. We are also working hard to bring back the Original Big 7 from New Orleans, as well as many other audience favorites from previous years: March Fourth Marching Band (Portland, OR), What Cheer? Brigade (Providence, RI), Brass Liberation Orchestra (Oakland, CA), Hungry March Band and Rude Mechanical Orchestra (Brooklyn, NY) and Cakalak Thunder (Greensboro, NC) enthusiastically return, plus bands from Montreal, Vermont, Chicago, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Seattle and Santa Cruz. Home-town favorites the Second Line Social Aid Pleasure Society Brass Band and Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band promise to welcome new and old friends and comrades. Non-musical parade contingents will include Bread and Puppet Theater, the CanCan Revolution, Livable Streets, Green Streets Initiative, and the Boston Derby Dames. Music, photos, schedule details and links can all be found at www.honkfest.org.
HONK! is an all-volunteer, community-based event that does not rely on big grants or corporate sponsorships-it is made possible by an extraordinary outpouring of community support. We are calling on you now to lend that support. Although bands are not paid for their participation, and accommodations for visiting musicians are provided by local residents, this year we must raise $50,000 to cover the costs of marketing, and food and transportation for 300 musicians!
We are asking that you consider a generous, tax-deductible contribution today. You can contribute online at www.honkfest.org or by sending a check made payable to HONK! , 100 Jackson Street, Cambridge, MA 02140.
We’ll send emails with more detailed schedule information as we get closer to the weekend. More than anything, we can’t wait to see you at HONK!
With our thanks,
The HONK Committee
John Bell, Trudi Cohen, Ken Field, Bob Follansbee, Reebee Garofalo, Rob Gregory, Michelle Kweder, Kevin Leppmann, Maury Martin, Dave Morgan, Lydia Stein, Rand Wilson
P.S. We need volunteers! In September and October we’ll need people to help us publicize HONK!. During HONK we’ll need volunteers for everything from selling merchandise to driving musicians from the airport. And, we need hosts - people to host and house musicians in their homes. Please email us at participate@honkfest.org and let us know that you are interested!
Posted in Announcements, Arts and Culture, Events
September 18th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
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