Companion WebsiteThis is the companion website for HONK! A Street Band Renaissance of Music and Activism (Routledge 2020), edited by Reebee Garofalo, Erin T. Allen, and Andrew Snyder. The book explores increasingly interconnected alternative brass movements around the globe through the lens of the transnational HONK! festival network.
This site offers media resources for the book's 20 chapters and features other writing, links, and media about the movement. |
HONK! A Street Band Renaissance of Music and Activism
HONK! A Street Band Renaissance of Music and Activism explores a fast-growing and transnational movement of street bands – particularly brass and percussion ensembles – and examines how this phenomenon mobilizes communities to reimagine public spaces, protest injustice, and assert their activism. Through the joy of participatory music making, many HONK! bands engage in street protests, grassroots organization, and inclusive pedagogies, manifesting innovative alternatives to cultural and political realities. This collection of 20 essays considers the diverse bands, repertoires, and movements that make up the HONK! community and beyond.
In five parts, musicians, activists, and scholars voiced in various local contexts cover a range of themes and topics:
• History and Scope
• Repertoire, Pedagogy, and Performance
• Inclusion and Organization
• Festival Organization and Politics
• On the Front Lines of Protest
The HONK! Festival of Activist Street Bands began in Somerville, Massachusetts in 2006 as an independent, non-commercial street festival, and it has since spread to four continents. HONK! A Street Band Renaissance of Music and Activism investigates how street bands and musicians seek to change the world and provide musical, social, and political alternatives in contemporary times.
Below is a conversation with some of the authors at a panel about the book on October 11, 2020, during the virtual global festival HONK!United: