Conference Description

The 2025 HONK! Festival will include a HONK! U Conference on Thursday, October 9 at Tufts University’s Department of Music, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with breakfast available starting at 9:00 a.m.

Twenty years ago, the first HONK! Festival was held in Davis Sq, Somerville, as a celebratory public dissent. Today, street music, as practiced by brass bands to promote community-building, art, and activism, is more important than ever. The 2025 HONK! U Conference will include presentations, panel discussions, conversations, and workshops addressing the development and expansion of HONK! as a world-wide grassroots phenomenon. A preliminary program is included below.

We envision a conference that maximizes audience participation. So, we are asking all band liaisons to share this memo and encourage your members to arrive in time for the opening plenary session on Thursday, September 9. The HONK! U Conference is free and open to the public. Breakfast and lunch will be provided, courtesy of Tufts University. For those who arrive on Wednesday October 8, HONK! Housing will be available starting that day.

To help us accommodate everyone, we are asking all attendees to register for the conference at this link. We urge you to do that as soon as you can!

Register here!

Conference Program

• 9:00 – Breakfast in Sophia Gordon Hall Foyer
• 9:30 – Welcome by the Good Trouble Brass Band outside

Morning Sessions

Distler Auditorium

• 10:00 – Plenary: Welcome, Intros – (15 min)
  • Reebee Garofalo, HONK! Festival Committee, Emeritus Professor, UMass Boston

• 10:15 – NOLA Culture and Resistance: Then and Now – (45 mins)
  • “Brassroots Democracy and Reconstruction-Era Black Brass Bands” – Ben Arson, Assistant Professor of Music, Brucknell University
  • “The Culture of New Orleans: Second Lines and Brass Bands” – Edward Buckner, president of the Original Big Seven Social Aid and Pleasure Club and founder of the Original Big Seven Culture and Heritage, New Orleans, LA
• 11:00 – Activist Street Band Survey: Approaches and Experiences – (30 min)
  • Sarah Bennett & John Mayer, Leftist Marching Band, Portsmith, NH

• 11:30 – How Do We Honk? Critical Learning, Listening and Social Change (45 mi)
  • Critical Listening as a Tool of Sonic Social Change in the HONK! Movement” –  Erin Allen, Lecturer in Ethnomusicology, Ohio State University
  • How Do We Honk? Modes of Learning, Listening, and Improvisation in  Contemporary Brass Bands” – Jason Belcher, PhD candidate, University of Pittsburgh; member of Brass Balagan

  • 12:15 – Lunch in Sophia Gordon foyer and hall

Afternoon Sessions

Session 1
Sophia Gordon Hall

• 1:15 – Radical Inclusion: Gender and Democracy in HONK! – (45 mins)
  • “Radical Inclusion in the HONK! Community: A Call for Collective Growth” – Liz Kasser, Brassless Chaps and of HONK! PDX in Portland, OR.
  • “Gender and Democracy: Femme Bands and Radical Organizing” – Megan Kallman,  Associate Professor in the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development, UMass Boston, and musician.

Remis Scupture Court (Aidekman)

• 1:15 – Conversation: Band Organization and Dynamics – (45 min)
  • Moderator: Sarah Blust,  Rude Mechanical Orchestra, NYC
• 2:00 – Break

Session 2
Sophia Gordon Hall

• 2:05 – Conversation: Creating a Band Action: Coordination, Chants, Costumes, etc – (45 min)
  • Moderator: John Bell, HONK! Festival Committee and Good Trouble Brass Band

Remis Sculpture Court (Aidekman)

• 2:05 – Building a Singing Movement – (45 mins)
  • “How To Build a Singing Movement” – Lisa Gallatin, Union organizer, Music Director of BVOCAL! Boston Voices of Community and Labor
  • “Get Everybody Singing” – Edwin Everheart, anthropologist, teacher, May Day Marching Band, and co-founder of Pittsburgh Labor Choir
• 2:50 – Break

Session 3
Sophia Gordon Hall

• 3:00 – Conversation: Community Organizing and Movement Building – (45 min)
  • Moderator: Matt Taylor, HONK! Festival Committee and Good Trouble Brass Band

Remis Scupture Court (Aidekman)

• 3:00 – Tune share – (60 – 120 min)
  • Leader: Kevin Leppmann: Founder, School of HONK (Outdoors, weather permitting).

Session 4
Sophia Gordon Hall

• 4:00 – Conversation: HONK! Festivals – Lessons Learned (60 min)
  • Moderator: Reebee Garofalo, HONK! Festival Committee and Good Trouble Brass Band
  • Panelists:
    • Bill Clifford – CoFounder of HONKfest West
    • Irina Rasputnis – Founder of Tacoma HONK! Fest
    • Andrew Snyder – Chronicled the development of HONK! Rio
    • Sara Valentine – Founder of HONK! NYC

5:00: HONK! Conference Ends

The HONK! U Conference is produced by the Somerville HONK! Festival, with generous support from the Tufts University Department of Music and Assistant Teaching Professor Stephanie Khoury.