If you don’t have the music, if you don’t know what people are playing, go up to somebody with your same instrumentation and check out their music, and they’re always willing to lend you advice,” Kasser said. ”Everyone’s so willing to help each other out. A couple HONK! Fest standards will be open to all, with opportunities for solos encouraged. There’ll also be “all-band jams,” where anyone with an instrument in tow is invited to join in. On Saturday afternoon, a rudimentary drum workshop will be offered to anyone interested in brushing up on their skills, or learning for the first time, like she did in Seattle. There are plenty of opportunities for public participation, another aspect of the festival that’s important to Kasser. Portlanders who come to HONK! PDX don’t have to be spectators alone. The event is also partially funded by grants from Portland Events and Film and the Regional Arts and Culture Council. Kasser said folks behind the Montavilla Jazz Festival, now in its tenth year, have been supportive in helping make HONK! PDX a reality in Montavilla, as have neighborhood businesses and residents. Meanwhile, she said, the Montavilla neighborhood has been historically underserved by the arts, particularly areas east of Portland’s 82nd Avenue. ![]() She added that its central location and easy access by transit were other pluses for the event’s accessibility. We want to bring together those people, who don’t get the chance to have free access to music,” Kasser said. It’s a neighborhood where there’s a lot of renters, there’s a lot of people of different socioeconomic backgrounds. ”Revolution Hall, the field outside of there, in particular has historical significance of being a place where a lot of people met up in 2020 to go to the protests downtown. These locations were chosen with intention, and with the principal of reclaiming public space in mind. On Sunday, the festival will visit multiple locations in Portland’s Montavilla neighborhood. A place where we can all come together as a community and make music without pressure, and just have fun with it,” she said.īands will play throughout the afternoon on Saturday at Washington Monroe Park, just outside Portland’s Revolution Hall. “It was really important, especially in Portland, to have a place where queers can come together and play music in an environment that’s not led by a cis white man. Today, Kasser plays bass drum in Portland’s Brassless Chaps, a queer activist street band. And here I am, six years later, still playing the drums,” she said. I’d always wanted to play drums, and in Rise Up! Action Band, I was encouraged to pick up a snare drum and learn how to play. ”The really given me a place to flourish and explore my self identity, and also just become a musician. After performing with them that year at HONK! Fest West, Kasser was hooked. She went on to join Rise Up! Action Band, her friends’ activist street marching band. ”We made lots of music, and we chanted and walked through the streets of Seattle, and it was just the most magical time I’d ever had,” Kasser said. ![]() ![]() It was a musical house, with a variety of instruments to choose from. She was hanging out at a friend’s house and was invited to come along with them to a protest march, and then told to grab an instrument. Kasser’s HONK! origin story began in Seattle in 2017. And I was like, ‘why don’t we have one of those here? I might as well make one,’” she said. “There’s so many brass bands here … Portland has such a great sense of community, and everyone comes together to help everyone, and it’s such a musical town too. Now a Portlander, she was moved to bring the joy of brass band and drumline music to Portland with a festival of its own. Liz Kasser, HONK! PDX’s principal coordinator, is a musician and a veteran of HONK! Fest West, Seattle’s version of the festival. HONK! Fest got its start in Massachusetts in 2008, and has spread to cities around the world since then. Saturday marks the kickoff of the city’s first-ever HONK! PDX: a free, two-day brass and street band music festival, bringing together bands from around the Pacific Northwest. The sounds of horns and drums will echo through neighborhoods on Portland’s Eastside this weekend.
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