Our beautiful Park Avenue in Downtown Aiken is going to come alive with music this Friday evening during a Summer Solstice Stroll- June 21st from 6:00pm to 8:30pm- to celebrate Make Music Day in Aiken. This is literally the “coolest” street in town so please come join in!
Make Music is a free celebration of music around the world on June 21st. Launched in 1982 in France as the Fête de la Musique, it is now held on the same day in more than 1,000 cities in 120 countries. Completely different from a typical music festival, Make Music is open to anyone who wants to take part. Every kind of musician — young and old, amateur and professional, of every musical persuasion — pours onto streets, parks, plazas, and porches to share their music with friends, neighbors, and strangers. All of it is free and open to the public.”
The description above is from the MakeMusicDay.Org website and completely defines this impromptu, go with the flow effort in our own city. Go to the site and see all the inspiring activities planned around the world on June 21st every year. Aiken is even on the website as a Mass Appeal site! This will hopefully be an annual event for Aiken because the energy around this event has been great. There are so many people joining in the fun Friday night and room for many more.
From Laurens Street to the Train Depot, there will be dulcimers, guitars, disc jockies, bands, singers, and more. You can contact Anna Lipscomb at AnnaLipsco@gmail.com if you want to get involved!
Here is a sample of activities on Park Avenue Friday night:
Betsy’s on the Corner has a Tap Takeover and live music Upstairs from Ciera Clingerman and Karlton Timmerman.
Palmetto Package has a wine tasting and live music featuring Michael Aiken.
The Mill parking lot will host the debut of “Roadie“, a horse trailer upfitted to serve as a party wagon for events. It is ironic that they will debut at The Mill, because the conversion was done by a team in Asheville that includes The Mill owners daughter, Emily Sacks! Byron Bush will be spinning some tunes in the parking lot and refreshments will be served out of “Roadie”!
Michael Eubanks will host a Group Guitar Strumming lesson in the Chesser Building parking lot, between Newberry and Chesterfield, for folks 10 and older starting at 7:30. Bring your guitar and a chair if you want one and join fellow musicians to play along with a new tune Michael will instruct on. We hope to film this session.
Vintage Music is lining up some fun things down in the block close to the Train Depot and buskers and musicians will be lining the rest of Park Avenue!
You don’t have to sign up to participate! Just show up with your rhythm instruments, 5 gallon bucket drums, flute, horn, guitar, etc. and spread out on the blocks along Park Avenue.
At the end of the day, a group of folks started this effort in Aiken to keep building a music economy and also highlight our beautiful Park Avenue corridor for downtown expansion. Come stroll or play music. It should be a lovely evening #downonPark!
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