Local and international brass band music will flood the streets of Somerville this weekend for the annual HONK! Festival, a celebration that aims to unite community members and promote social change through its sea of noise.
HONK! takes place in various local cities, but originated in Somerville and typically has a strong presence in Davis Square. It was first organized by community members who wanted to engage citizens and emphasize the power of free expression.
"The result is a spectacle that is radical and subversive without being militant or sanctimonious," organizers wrote on the festival's Web site.
The event is intended to wake "people up in an immediate and larger sense," Kevin Leppmann, a member of a 12-person committee organizing the festival, told the Daily. The name of the festival arose as a "metaphor for what it is to honk in the street," said Leppmann, who will be participating in this year's festival as part of the Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band.
Starting tomorrow, the music festival will feature a variety of brass bands and last three days. "Activist bands," performance groups that back a variety of causes, will toot their horns and beat their drums around the Boston area. Davis Square will host a free, open-air concert featuring 25 of the groups on Saturday.
These performances will lead up to a Sunday afternoon parade down Massachusetts Avenue. The festival will culminate in a show at Davis Square's Somerville Theatre on Sunday night.
This year's event will include around 30 bands with names like Caka!ak Thunder, Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band and Extraordinary Rendition Band.
Although bands will not earn a commission, 350 musicians will make the trip from places as nearby as Boston and Cambridge and as far away as Vancouver, New Orleans and Italy.
The festival's organizing committee contacted community-oriented brass bands to participate in HONK! , and the event has also benefitted from a strong word-of-mouth campaign, attracting musicians from around the world.
Fabrizio Iannuccelli, the tuba player for Italian brass-band ensemble the Pink Puffers, commended the festival's ability to unite participants on an international level.
"I'm going to meet people again who I met two, three, four, five years ago, people that live far away and with whom we shared band and life experiences," Iannuccelli told the Daily in an e-mail.
"We are in touch mainly by Internet, but in a few days we will hug them all, not virtually but face to face," he added. "That's the best thing, and that's why the festival exists."
In line with the festival's goals, participating bands share a desire to inspire social change and community awareness.
"Although there is not a firm set of criteria, usually the bands featured are community bands that do not play primarily for money and always play for social and community events," Leppman said.
HONK! strives to mend the common disconnect between musicians and their audience, with organizers inviting anyone interested to attend. The beauty of the festival, Leppman said, lies in its ability to unite accomplished performers and "the isolated society segregated in homes and shopping malls."
Davis Square been the focal point of HONK! Fest for years, as Somerville residents and businesses play a key role in the logistics of the extravaganza by hosting non-Bostonian band members and providing food and services.
The festival began as and has continued to be a "completely grass-roots event," Marita Spooner, a HONK! Festival organizer, told the Daily.
Spooner said the festival has earned respect from the community because it is a "completely non-profit effort" that citizens and bands "stumbled upon and said was great."
