Live Music Will Take Over New York’s Parks This Summer

Parks are precious in New York. The city’s park system spans over 29,000 acres, with 1,942 parks and open spaces across the five boroughs. At any given time, New York’s parks serve as playgrounds, running tracks and sports fields, dog runs, botanical museums and performing arts theatres.

They also make for spectacular concert venues.

Every year, SummerStage, the outdoor performing arts festival, brings a wide range of free and benefit concerts — everything from hip-hop to opera — to Central Park and neighborhood parks across the five boroughs.

In 2023, the festival is in its 37th year. Season highlights include Kool & The Gang, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds & Garbage, Regina Spektor, and a city-wide celebration of hip-hop’s fiftieth anniversary.

Erika Elliott, Executive Artistic Director of SummerStage, spoke to Forbes about one of the city’s favorite summer traditions.

Erika, 37 years on, how would you say that SummerStage — both the event and the vision itself — has gotten bigger and better?

From its start over 30 years ago in Central Park to now serving all five boroughs with multiple park locations and over 80 shows, Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage has had unbelievable growth. We have also completely reimagined and renovated our Central Park venue to a more state-of-the-art concert experience for our artists and guests. SummerStage is way bigger than our humble beginnings.

Better, I would argue that our importance as a festival has always been to hold space and celebrate diversity and give platform to artists, communities and art forms not found at other festivals and moreover to be accessible to all by being free. Our mission has stood the test and need of time, and for me the better is that ethos and need is even more critical. I deeply believe in the power of music and we bring that magic to over 200,000 New Yorkers every summer.

For something as massive as SummerStage, curation and programming must be a huge undertaking. How do you and the team go about it?

Curating SummerStage is a major undertaking but I feel like I have a dream job — booking free events into New York City parks! The incredible vibrancy and diversity of culture and communities of New York City are fuel for unparalleled inspiration, and then relationships I have cultivated over my almost 20 years with the organization are key.

Any personal musical highlights from your time with the festival?

In my tenure, I have had so many special moments at SummerStage — from Gil Scot Heron’s final NYC performance, Stevie Wonder, Seu Jorge, Patti Smith, Khalid at East River Park and Nas, LL Cool J — far too many to mention!

One of the crucial things about SummerStage is its spread across the five boroughs. Which borough most knows how to party?

SummerStage is for everyone and we love to bring the community together in their neighborhood parks as we tour throughout the five boroughs. Picking one is a tough call. The really beautiful thing about NYC is that each neighborhood has a vibe, but I would say consistently Brooklyn and Harlem come out to party.