Opening Doors Festival Kicks Off Saturday

MELROSE, MA — The first-ever Opening Doors Festival, a celebration of diversity and inclusion through music and art, kicks off Saturday, June 11, at 3 p.m. on the Cabbage Patch Field at Melrose Memorial Middle School.

The festival is hosted by the Opening Doors Project, a Melrose-based nonprofit which aims to advance conversations about race and anti-racism through the arts. Co-founders Stacey Babb and Alastair Moock started the organization in 2021.

"The festival is part of an ongoing effort to help make Melrose 'One community, open to all' — a process that begins with representation and inclusion," Moock said. "It's about music and art, and it's about listening — really listening — to each other."

Local artists will headline the free, all-ages event. Alongside fellow veteran musician Reggie Harris, Moock will open the festival with a musical conversation. The Boston City Singers, a Dorchester-based group of talented teenagers, will follow with music and drumming.

Throughout their performances, a group of local visual artists will collaborate with festival attendees to create a community art project as a "permanent symbol of the connections we’ve made through this collaboration," Follow Your Art Community Studios Director Kris Rodolico said.

To learn more about the festival and to register, visit openingdoorsproject.net.