June 22, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 06, 1428

PARIS: France was celebrating the summer solstice on Thursday with an all-night music festival in cities and towns that was to draw some 10 million revellers onto the streets. The “Fete de la Musique” -- an annual street party launched in 1982 -- will this year see amateur bands and some big names go on stage in around 18,000 free concerts, from Marseille to Metz and from Bayonne to Brest.

One of France's top artists, Renaud, was to perform at a prison in the northern Pas-de-Calais region, one of the 150 concerts organised in detention centres across the country.

The music festival is catching on worldwide with New York this year joining the list of 400 cities that are shutting off streets and setting up makeshift stages to make way for musicians.

In New York, the Metropolitan Opera and the city's Philharmonic are among 4,000 professional musicians offering 1,200 free classical, rock, salsa or soul concerts from Manhattan to Brooklyn for the first edition of “Make Music New York.”

Apart from New York, Amsterdam, Albion (USA), Winnipeg (Canada) and Rivoli (Italy) are among cities joining the party now held in 130 countries.—AFP