First HONK! PDX brings joyful noise of brass, street bands to Portland neighborhoods

The sounds of horns and drums will echo through neighborhoods on Portland’s Eastside this weekend. Saturday marks the kickoff of the city’s first-ever HONK! PDX: a free, two-day brass and street band music festival, bringing together bands from around the Pacific Northwest.

HONK! Fest got its start in Massachusetts in 2008, and has spread to cities around the world since then. Liz Kasser, HONK! PDX’s principal coordinator, is a musician and a veteran of HONK! Fest West, Seattle’s version of the festival. Now a Portlander, she was moved to bring the joy of brass band and drumline music to Portland with a festival of its own.

“There’s so many brass bands here … Portland has such a great sense of community, and everyone comes together to help everyone, and it’s such a musical town too. And I was like, ‘why don’t we have one of those here? I might as well make one,’” she said.

Kasser’s HONK! origin story began in Seattle in 2017. She was hanging out at a friend’s house and was invited to come along with them to a protest march, and then told to grab an instrument. It was a musical house, with a variety of instruments to choose from. She picked up a tambourine.

”We made lots of music, and we chanted and walked through the streets of Seattle, and it was just the most magical time I’d ever had,” Kasser said.