BRIC, a Brooklyn-based arts and media institution, announced the 2021 BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival will return once again to the Prospect Park bandshell with live, in-person performances.
Last year’s season of the concert series was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reinvented as a virtual two-day event.
For the past 43 years, BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival has been the summer-long outdoor concert and performance series that celebrates talent from around the world and around the block, presenting global music icons, jazz artists, indie bands, dance troupes, large-scale film projects and public art installations.
The 2021 season of the free festival will kick off at 7:30pm on July 31 with R&B singer/songwriter Ari Lennox as the headliner, Brooklyn-based rapper and poet KAMAUU and Jamaican-bred R&B artist Nesta as openers. The first benefit concert of the season was also announced and will feature British rock band Glass Animals, who will be playing the park as part of their Dreamland Tour. The rest of the Festival lineup is still to be announced.
“BRIC was proud to bring hundreds of thousands of people the opportunity to connect with artists from across the world, safely from their homes, during a pandemic,” says Kristina Newman-Scott, BRIC’s president. “But, there’s nothing like the energy of Brooklyn when it’s filled with friends and family, all gathered for good times and great music. We are elated to be coming.”
Lia Camille Crockett, BRIC director of performing arts, added “During these past 18 months, we have been tested in ways we could have never imagined, and BRIC is so proud of what we’ve accomplished; we came together in the face of hardship, with music and art, and proved that our community will always do what we do best – show up. Well, we’re BACK!”
NYC Department of Cultural Affairs commissioner Gonzalo Casals said “e are so excited to see the return of BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival to the bandshell in Prospect Park,” adding, The resurgence of arts and culture are going to help make this the Summer of NYC, and we are overjoyed that BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, will be a part of that revival.”
BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival will take place at reduced capacity in accordance with New York State’s COVID-19 compliance policy and CDC guidelines. While the Festival will remain free of charge, RSVPs will be required, social distancing will be implemented, and either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test will need to be shown to gain entry.
More at visit bricartsmedia.org/live.
