Statements
Mission
Make Music Nashville (MMN) collaborates with community partners to create opportunities for all Nashvillians to take part in World Music Day on June 21st through music education, play-alongs, and concert experiences in locations across Nashville.
Background
Once a year on the longest day of summer, hundreds of cities around the world join forces in an annual celebration of music called Make Music Day. The celebration began in France as Fete de la Musique, a day that since 1982 has grown into a national holiday. Over the course of three decades, the momentum behind Make Music Day has carried it into more than 120 countries around the world, including an ever-growing amount of cities here in America. Make Music Day came to Nashville in 2014, and the first festival occurred on Saturday June 21, 2014. The event has continued to grow and just completed its tenth year. From the first year, MMN has placed a special focus on its play-along events, giving the public a chance to play alongside both professionals and amateurs alike. Our Sevier Park drum circle and Nashville Zoo harmonica jam have been crowd favorites that have occurred every year since 2014. These events are made possible through partnerships from musical distributors and manufacturers Fork's Drum Closet and Hohner Harmonicas. With the continued partnership of the national Make Music Alliance, MMN gains increasing support for creative play-along programming each and every year. In 2016, MMN incorporated as a federally recognized 501(c)(3) organization.
Impact
We work to ensure that all our events celebrate a wide variety of musical heritages, ideally representing the diversity of our Nashville communities. This is achieved by providing a platform and amplifying artists and partners who meet our main criteria - that the performance or musical activity is free and accessible. One of MMN's primary focuses is to provide a performance platform for artists of all genres, abilities, backgrounds, etc. We do not discriminate based on professional status, work history, or other qualifiers that can serve to reduce opportunities for underserved artists. Our paid leaders range from passionate amateurs to professional, GRAMMY-winning artists. We collaborate closely with partners to identify leaders who are reflective of and connected to their communities. MMN's role is to support, elevate and fund these leaders throughout their programs' implementation.
Through partnerships with Hohner Harmonicas, Old Town Trolley Tours and the National Museum of African American Music (among many others), Make Music Nashville has distributed more than 2,500 free instruments since 2014, including harmonicas, flutes and musical spoons as well as more than 2,000 free instrument lessons. We are grateful to have nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels in outreach: the 2023 event reached over 10,000 audience members, giving away over 300 lessons and instruments, with 85 individual artists at 15 venues. While many of the musicians who perform on June 21 are volunteer, we utilize a variety of financial resources to ensure that we can pay artists who are leading any of our play-alongs or educational or interactive events.
Our goal is to reach every Nashvillian and members of the surrounding communities! The fluidity of our organization allows us to work toward this goal by reaching as many people in these communities as our resources allow; even small additions in revenue or one new neighborhood partner has an exponential impact on the number of Nashvillians we can reach.
Needs
The organization needs new volunteers for our Board of Directors, especially who have backgrounds in fundraising and legal services - it went from 8 to 4 members since the start of the pandemic in 2020. To continue growth in a sustainable way, Make Music Nashville needs assistance in formalizing policies and codifying procedures to ensure consistency in scaling the organization. Make Music Nashville requires increased funding to facilitate proposed capacity building resources and increased presence throughout the year. Make Music Nashville requires a larger base of volunteers to ensure the growing event's continued success.
CEO Statement
As Nashville's only DIY music festival, Make Music Nashville fulfills both musical and educational needs of the community with a unique approach. MMN collaborates with community partners to create opportunities for all Nashvillians to take part in Make Music Day on June 21st through music education, play-alongs, and concert experiences in locations across Nashville - all of which are free and open to the public. Anyone can be a performer, anywhere can be a venue, and everyone can participate.
There are no limits to the festival's scope or style, and every year's celebration is unlike any other. Make Music Nashville's education initiatives create opportunities across the city to engage individuals in free music learning experiences. With partnerships ranging from national music merchants to local institutions, MMN's educational outreach captures the DIY spirit of the daylong celebration with enriching opportunities including instrument giveaways and free music lessons. Patrons are encouraged to take these instruments and lessons and asked for nothing in return. These are the type of events that have potential to ignite the spark for a lifelong journey into music, and MMN is at the forefront of facilitating as many opportunities in as many locations as possible. It is an organization dedicated to celebrating music and sharing that celebration with the community through inclusivity and dynamic programming.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Arts, Culture & Humanities - Music |
| Secondary Category: | Arts, Culture & Humanities - Commemorative Events |
| Tertiary Category: | - |
Areas Served
MMN's 2023 event reached over 10,000 audience members, giving away over 300 lessons and instruments, with 85 individual artists at 15 venues, this year primarily in Davidson County. Neighborhoods include Donelson, Woodbine, Wedgewood-Houston, Madison, and The Nations, among many others.
| TN - Williamson |
| TN - Rutherford |
| TN - Davidson |
