So reads the “About HONK!” page of the original annual HONK! Festival in Somerville, Massachusetts, in the Boston area. These bands don’t just play for the people they play among the people and invite them to join the fun…. Throughout the country and across the globe, a new type of street band movement is emerging-outrageous and inclusive, brass and brash, percussive and persuasive-reclaiming public space with a sound that is in your face and out of this world…. (2022) “HONK!United: A Virtual Global Festival of Activist Brass Bands during the COVID-19 Pandemic”, ![]() Keywords: HONK!, brass bands, pandemic, virtual festival, activism We argue that although the pandemic presented tremendous challenges to the sustainability of live music cultures, it also provided previously unimaginable opportunities for musical movement building across the world. Drawing on the works of Judith Butler and Anna Tsing, this article discusses the practical and conceptual implications of making an in-person event virtual, the politics of public assembly in a virtual format, and frictions between diverse musical communities in global conversation. In the course of fifty hours over eight days in October 2020, HONK!United brought together musicians and activists from all seven continents to share music videos, documentaries, live chats, workshops, and panels, providing an opportunity for these disparate communities to gain unprecedented self-consciousness as a global movement. As such gatherings became impossible in 2020, this global festival network conceived of a virtual festival that would connect the diffuse festivals, which had generally been limited to local, ephemeral events. The global network of HONK! Festivals that emerged in Boston in 2006 fills public spaces around the world with crowds and acoustic music, promoting live, “unmediated” musical experiences. ![]() While many social activities abruptly went online due to the pandemic, the HONK! Festivals of Activist Brass Bands would seem an unlikely candidate for going virtual.
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