I only got to see one performance this year during the seventh-annual Make Music New York: the day-long feast of free outdoor music, which this year coincided with the first National Music Day. It was R. Murray Schafer's Credo (1976) for strings, electronics, and chorus—both on shore and in boats on Central Park Lake. The performance, conducted by City Opera Director George Steel, was one of three Schafer works performed on the lake, spanning sunrise to sundown. Written for 12 individual choirs, the hour-long Credo was musically inspired by Thomas Tallis’s motet Spem in alium, with text based on the writings of 16th-century Italian astronomer Giordano Bruno describing the universe.

Other performances around town included a percussion performance by inmates on Rikers Island, 175 keyboardists performing on Cornelia Street—breaking a Guinness World Record—and 400 guitarists playing in Union Square. 

More pics of Credo on the photo page.