Building Community Through MPTF
This spring and summer, collaboration and community were the common threads for dozens of musical performances throughout North Texas. Through the co-sponsorship of Music Performance Trust Fund, Local 72-147 bands performed on April 18-21 for the 37th Main Street Fort Worth Arts Festival’s “Music on Main” – Fort Worth’s largest, free, music festival. Also during April, for Jazz History Month, weekly performances at Dallas’ Klyde Warren Park featured local bands on Thursday nights in the Park’s Muse Family Performance Pavilion.
Also in commemoration of Jazz History Month, Local 72-147 collaborated with the Greater Denton Arts Council (GDAC) to present a Community Jam Session at the Council’s Patterson-Appleton Arts Center. Music students from Denton area universities were invited to come out and sit in with some of Denton’s finest jazz musicians for a community performance and celebration of jazz, supported by MPTF. Earlier in the spring, Local 72-147 began its partnership with GDAC with a performance also at the Patterson-Appleton Center in March, which featured a band specially brought together and comprised completely of area women band leaders, performing “Music from the Heart and Soul of a Woman” for Women’s History Month.
May and June saw the continuance of MPTF supported performances at Klyde Warren Park, and the beginning of a new collaboration. Now working with the Denton Main Street Association, Local 72-147 is bringing MPTF support to many of its “Twilight Tunes” concerts, performed in the Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square Lawn. This series concluded its summer performances on June 21 with a special “Make Music Day” set of performances on the square, and will continue its “Twilight Tunes” in the fall. Also recently in Dallas, a performance celebrating Juneteenth was performed at Dallas’ Klyde Warren Park.
Plans for continuing all these partnerships and MPTF projects are moving forward. More Dallas park performances, Twilight Tunes performances, and Community Jam Sessions are in the works to provide superior musical performances for the community, gigs for musicians, and engagement between our members, audiences and the community at large.
Coming up: this year’s Denton Arts & Jazz Festival will take place on October 4th through the 5th. The wheels are again in motion to organize the dozens of local bands for this yearly celebration of Arts & Jazz, with the sponsorship of Music Performance Trust Fund.
Community performances sponsored through MPTF in affiliation with Local 762-147 include performances commemorating Women’s History Month, Jazz Appreciation Month, the celebration of Juneteenth, and the annual Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival. Other ongoing public performance series at Dallas’ Klyde Warren Park and the Denton Main Street Association’s Twilight Tunes performances in Downtown Denton. In addition, Local 72-147 is organizing community jam sessions to create excellent public performances and engage the musical community. The first was held this spring at the Patterson-Appleton Center in Denton. Click on any of the links above for photos of the various events.