BROOKLYN, NY— The sound Melanie Charles wants people to hear this summer is not confined to a concert hall.
Instead, she hopes commuters walking home, families pushing strollers and neighbors passing through Park Slope will stop when music drifts onto Seventh Avenue.
The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music's free Midsummer Nights concert series returns with four outdoor performances, opening Thursday night at 6:30 p.m.
The free performances will take place on Lincoln Place, alongside the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music building, rather than on the front steps.
The conservatory, located at 58 Seventh Ave., can serve as a point of reference for attendees.
Limited seating will be available, and organizers encourage guests to bring their own chairs or blankets if they prefer additional seating.
For Charles, a Brooklyn native who studied at the conservatory as a child, the series has become a way to reconnect audiences with music that once belonged as much to neighborhood gatherings as concert stages.
"It's part of my fabric," Charles said. "I'm a performer myself. I'm an artist myself, but I also really love experiencing my community. And so this festival series has been an opportunity to shine light on the incredible New York art scene."
Charles describes her Make Jazz Trill Again movement as an effort to return jazz to the people who inspired it.
"There was a time where jazz music was the music of house parties," she said.
"It was the sound of the people. As the music evolved, it became very institutionalized. It became very expensive."
The outdoor concerts remove that barrier.
Charles, a first-generation Haitian American, built much of this year's lineup around Haitian musicians and the broader African diaspora.
"What are the artists that you wouldn't necessarily have access to? Who are the artists that aren't necessarily getting the opportunities?" she said. "That's really at the core of my passion."
The opening performance features Brooklyn-based Rasin Okan, whose music grows from Haiti's mizik rasin movement.
Véronëque Ignace, who has performed with the group since 2017, said Rasin Okan traces its history to the late 1990s in Brooklyn while drawing directly from Haitian ceremonial traditions.
Unlike many mizik rasin groups, Rasin Okan performs in the "rasin sèch," or "dry roots," style, relying primarily on hand drums and voices instead of electric instruments.
Brooklyn's Haitian community has shaped the borough for generations, Ignace said, and performances like Midsummer Nights offer a chance to celebrate that legacy in public.
"The music that we're sharing, because it's so tethered to tradition and it is inherently connected to dance and rhythm, that in itself is the connective tissue," she said.
As neighborhoods continue to change, Ignace said the performances create space for cultural traditions to remain visible.
"Being able to create art, being able to claim this space as a hub for our creativity and for our cultural heritage as well is in itself a social process," she said. "No matter where we are, we are home because we are tethered to these roots."
Charles said the variety reflects both New York City's music scene and jazz's global history.
"We know the journey of jazz begins in Africa, the Caribbean, New Orleans," she said. "It's a music of uniting people."
Charles said the concerts regularly draw people who had no plans to attend.
"They're going home from work, picking up their kids from school, and then here is this explosion of sound happening in the street," Charles said.
Each week explores a different musical tradition while emphasizing improvisation and participation.
The second week features Trill Mega Jam: Flute Fest, beginning with an open flute meet-up before performances by Melanie Charles, Alexandria DeWalt and Lee Hooper.
Jazz drummer Charles Goold headlines the third week with music blending hard bop and Haitian rhythms.
The finale closes with Strings N' Skins, whose performances combine Caribbean and Latin American musical traditions through percussion, violin, rap and dance.
"We need opportunities to connect with each other in spaces that are free," Charles said. "The economy is a mess. Here's an opportunity to really get top notch music, creativity, entertainment for free."
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 Seventh Ave.
6:30 p.m.
July 23: Rasin Okan
July 30: Trill Mega Jam: Flute Fest
Aug. 6: Charles Goold
Aug. 13: Strings N' Skins
Admission is free. Limited seating is available with RSVP.
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