Free Public Entry
2026.10.3 - 10.4 (SAT-SUN)
15 E 40th Street, 12F, New York, NY 10016
OCT
03
11 AM - 12 PM
1 PM - 10 PM
OCT
04
11 AM - 12 PM
1 PM - 10 PM
OCT 03
Music Showcase
3 PM-4 PM: Taige Wang Piano Solo Recital
5 PM-6 PM: Master Concert
8 PM-10 PM: Evening Concert
OCT 04
Music Showcase
10 AM - 12 PM: Student Concert
3 PM- 4 PM: Electronic Music Concert
8 PM - 10 PM: Evening Concert
We strive to make this festival accessible to all participants. If you require any accommodations due to a disability, please contact us prior to the event to discuss your needs.
What is MusicOn+ InterArts All About?
MusicOn+ is an exhibition framework rather than a showcase.
It brings practicing artists, composers, and participants of different ages into a shared viewing environment to examine how contemporary art functions beyond professional interpretive systems.
Instead of instructing audiences how to understand artworks, the exhibition treats conversations, questions, and differing interpretations as part of the exhibition material itself. Public response becomes part of the viewing experience rather than a separate educational activity.
In simple terms, participants present work alongside working artists so audiences can see how different viewers understand the same artwork in different ways, rather than being told a single “correct” meaning. MusicOn+ positions public reception as a curatorial condition, allowing contemporary art to meet broader viewers without simplifying its complexity.
Applications for Student Artists & Young Composers
Submission limit: Students may upload up to three (3) artworks total across all MusicOn+ application routes, including the Open Call and the 2025 XCAC Winner Entry.
Participation in Music On+ InterArts Festival is by application and review; the application deadline is July 31st, 11:59 PM, 2026. Selected students will be invited to exhibit artwork or perform as part of the festival.
Review is cross-disciplinary: NextGen InterArts Foundation oversees visual arts, while Mayflower Art Center leads music composition review. Music submissions must be original compositions created by the applicant; performance-only submissions of existing works are not eligible (see Music Composition Eligibility).
The MusicOn+ InterArts Festival is FREE and open to all audiences. Fees apply only to student artists submitting work for review and to those who choose to exhibit selected works
let the fun begin
The Festival
The Foundation
MusicOn+ InterArts Festival begins with a simple belief: art does not start as a product. It starts as attention. It starts before the explanation, before the label, before the sentence that tries to close it.
This festival is built by artists who keep work open long enough for it to change. Meaning is allowed to arrive slowly, through looking, listening, and the pressure of real encounter. Questions are not a side activity here. They are part of the form.
MusicOn+ brings sound, image, text, and material into one shared room so that reception becomes visible. Not as a lesson. As a lived condition. A place where art can remain unfinished, human, and awake.
The Bridge
MusicOn+ is where disciplines touch and lose their certainty. Music leans into the image. Text leaves the page and becomes surface. Materials speak back. One form interrupts another, and something new becomes legible.
Sound is not decoration. It organizes the room. It changes distance, pace, and the way the eye moves. What you hear alters what you see. What you see rewrites what you thought you heard.
This is the bridge: not a smooth connection, but a crossing. A place where different languages of making stay distinct, then collide, then clarify. The result is not a single meaning. It is a shared field where meaning keeps forming.
The Interaction
Students arrive with fresh eyes. Artists arrive with practice. They meet in the same room. Here, the artist is not a name on a wall label. Composers are not background. Judges are not distant. People are present, and presence changes the work.
Questions are welcomed, including the simple ones, the stubborn ones, the ones that miss the point, and the ones that find it by accident. Misreading is part of the encounter. Conversation becomes part of the exhibition.
MusicOn+ is built for exchange. Listening, looking, responding, and leaving with your thinking slightly rearranged.
The Philosophy
Art does not stay still because life does not stay still. It takes in uncertainty, conflict, longing, and invention, then returns them as form.
MusicOn+ exists to protect the part of art that cannot be rushed into a takeaway. The part that resists becoming a skill, a product, or a clean conclusion.
This festival treats art as a way of staying awake inside change. It brings disciplines into contact so that meaning can form, break, and form again. Not as a spectacle, but as a living condition of attention.
The Space + People
The Blanc Space
Curator
Xiaowei Chen
Curator | Artist | Educator | Founder of Xc Art Center
Yiming Wu
Composer | Educator | Founder of Mayflower Art Center
Exhibition Artists
Xiaowei Chen
Curator | Artist | Educator | Founder of Xc Art Center
William Norton
Art Judge | Curator | Artist
Kahori Kamiya
Art Judge | Artist | Educator
Michael Shi
Photographer | Artist
Yuetian Zhang
3D Artist | Designer | Video Editor
Chompunut Ditchaiwong
Artist | UI/UX Designer | Educator
Jiabao Qiao
Film/Video | Photography Artist
Leah Liu
Digital Designer | Artist | Illustrator
Music Judges
Wang Lu
Music Judge | Associate Professor of Music at Brown University
Felipe Lara
Music Judge | Associate Professor in the Composition Department at Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University
Who Can Apply?
Open Call for Young Creators
MusicOn+ InterArts Festival is open to students ages 6–18, regardless of academic background or artistic training, as well as emerging music composers under the age of 30.
We welcome applicants working across visual art, sound, movement, media, and interdisciplinary practices who approach creation as a way of thinking, exploring, and connecting ideas.
What are we looking for
Art submissions should reflect the student’s own way of thinking—layered, exploratory, and grounded in making. Based on your catagory(ies), the application form will need your artworks detail. (See file requirements)
Music applicants must submit original compositions (not existing works), written for 2–6 performers with a duration of 5–8 minutes, and conceived as complete artistic statements. (See Music Application Requirements)
Creative Categories
We invite young artists interested in the intersections of visual art, science, design, media, video, sound, and experimental practices to share original work shaped by curiosity, intention, and process.
MusicOn+ InterArts Festival Art Categories:
-
Traditional Art (Painting, Drawing, Printmaking)
-
Digital Art (Digital Painting, Illustration, Collage, Comic)
-
Photography (Still & Experimental)
-
Mixed Media (Collage, Assemblage, Recycled & Repurposed Materials)
-
Sculpture & 3D Art (Installation, Material-Based Work, 3D Printing)
-
Conceptual Art (Conceptual, Participatory Art)
-
Video & Moving Image (Video Art, Animation, Experimental Film)
-
Music & Sound + Art (Original Composition, Sound Art, Experimental Music)
-
Literature + Art (Book Design, Illustration)
-
Other (please specify in the application form)
Our Vision
MusicOn+ is an open, nonprofit platform that believes art belongs to everyone and begins before language. Rooted in multidisciplinary practice, the festival brings together sound, image, movement, and ideas to create new ways of thinking and connecting. We welcome creators across backgrounds and disciplines, affirming art as a vital force that bridges generations, cultures, and perspectives—and carries creative inquiry forward.
How It Works
Open Call Application & Selection Process
Check Eligibility
Before applying, please confirm that you meet the participation requirements for MusicOn+ InterArts Festival.
Check Creative Categories
Art Application FAQ
MusicOn+ InterArts Festival Art Application Terms and Conditions
Eligible students may submit up to total three (3) artworks for review, including the XCAC Winner Entry and the Open Call. Please prepare your files according to our submission guidelines.
1
Upload Your Artwork (10-20min)
Submit your artwork through our Open Call for Visual & Interdisciplinary Art. File name format: Lastname_Firstname_Artworkname
Applying on a computer or tablet is strongly recommended for easier file uploads and review.
You may upload up to three artworks, and each submission requires a $10 application fee per artwork, which supports the jury review and evaluation process.
2
Review & Selection
All submitted artworks are reviewed by the MusicOn+ InterArts Festival team.
If your work is selected, you will receive an email notification(2-3 weeks) and may choose which selected artwork(s) you would like to present in the festival exhibition.
How fees work after selection:
-
Application fees apply only to the review process.
-
If you choose to exhibit a selected artwork, the $10 application fee for that artwork will be deducted toward the final exhibition fee.
-
Example:
-
You submit Artwork A1 and A2
-
Both are selected
-
You choose to exhibit A1 only
→ A1’s $10 is deducted toward the exhibition fee
→ A2’s $10 remains as the review fee -
If a submission is not selected, or if you decide not to proceed with exhibition, the application fee will remain non-refundable.
-
3
Exhibit At
MusicOn+ InterArts Festival, and Digital Certificate of Exhibition
Only selected artworks will be presented at the MusicOn+ InterArts Festival exhibition.
Following the exhibition, student artists whose artworks are exhibited will receive a Digital Certificate of Exhibition issued by MusicOn+ InterArts Festival. Certificates will be sent via email and serve as official documentation of exhibition participation for professional development.
Exhibited works are professionally documented through on-site photography and video, ensuring your participation is recorded as part of the festival experience.
MusicOn+ InterArts Festival Art Application Terms and Conditions
4
Art Application FAQ
Open Call Application & Selection Process
Please review the MusicOn+ InterArts Festival Art Application Terms and Conditions before applying.
Music applicants have separate submission requirements.
Please review the Music Application Requirements before applying. If you have any questions about music submissions, feel free to contact at musiconfestival2022@gmail.com, call at 410-402-0521.
Yes.
MusicOn+ InterArts Festival is free and open to all audiences.Fees apply only to student participants submitting work for review and possible exhibition. We believe public access to art should remain open, welcoming, and barrier-free.
The MusicOn+ InterArts Festival will take place from October 3, 2026 at 2 PM(opening)-10 PM & October 4, 2026 at 11 AM-10 PM. Your artworks will be presented through the same time.
The deadline for the art applications will be on July 31st 2026 11:59 PM(midnight).
MusicOn+ InterArts Festival is open to art students ages 6–18 (primary school through high school), worldwide. Music submissions follow a separate set of guidelines.
We invite music applicants to review the Music Application Requirements below.See Music Application Requirements
If you have further questions for art submissions, please contact info@nextgeninterarts.com, call at 781-458-9891
For music submissions, please contact musiconfestival2022@gmail.com, call at 410-402-0521
We welcome students from public schools, private schools, homeschool programs, and independent study backgrounds. No single educational path is required.
MusicOn+ is founded on the belief that art does not exist in isolation.
We encourage dialogue between disciplines, including:
-
Traditional Art (Painting, Drawing, Printmaking)
-
Digital Art (Digital Painting, Illustration, Collage, Comic)
-
Photography (Still & Experimental)
-
Mixed Media (Collage, Assemblage, Recycled & Repurposed Materials)
-
Sculpture & 3D Art (Installation, Material-Based Work, 3D Printing)
-
Conceptual Art (Conceptual, Participatory Art)
-
Video & Moving Image (Video Art, Animation, Experimental Film)
-
Music & Sound + Art (Original Composition, Sound Art, Experimental Music)
-
Literature + Art (Book Design, Illustration)
-
Other (please specify)
The festival creates a shared environment where student artists, composers, invited artists, and audiences of all ages can see, listen, question, and connect together.
-
MusicOn+ does not impose a fixed theme.
Instead, we invite works that explore:
-
Interdisciplinary thinking
-
Process-based creation
-
Personal perspective
-
Curiosity, risk, and experimentation
Artists are free to interpret these ideas in their own way.
-
Artwork must be original, and fully AI-generated imagery is not permitted.
After the MusicOn+ InterArts Festival, you’ll receive a digital participation certificate by email within 2-3 weeks after the deadline.
We will also publish a festival credit list on our website, including the names of exhibiting artists and all exhibited student participants. Selected on-site photos and documentation from the exhibition will be posted as part of our festival archive, so you can revisit the atmosphere and share your participation with others.
1. How to Participate
Open Call Artwork submissions are completed online through the MusicOn+ Art Application Form.
We recommend using a computer or tablet for the best submission experience.
You will:
-
Confirm eligibility
-
Upload up to three artworks based on the art categories
-
Pay the $10 application fee per artwork
-
The format for naming all your files: Lastname_Firstname_Artworkname
-
For all the artwork submissions, please provide titles, materials, and artwork descriptions (<200)
-
For Traditional Art, Digital Art, Photography, please provide high-quality showcase image (1–5 MB)
-
For Mixed Media, Sculpture & 3D Art and Conceptual Art, please provide high-quality showcase image and multi-angle video link (if applicable) that can be shared and accessed.
-
Video and Moving Images and Music & Sound + Art will share your videos via a publicly accessible link that can be opened without restrictions and its artwork description.
-
For Literature + Art please provide your work as a PDF (< 10 MB) and its artwork description.
-
Each art applicant may submit up to three (3) works total across all MusicOn+ application routes, including the "Open Call for Visual & Interdisciplinary Art" and "2025 XCAC Contest Winner Entry".
Each artwork in "Open Call for Visual & Interdisciplinary Art" is reviewed independently and requires a $10 application fee.
MusicOn+ accepts artwork submissions in:
-
Visual Art
-
Interdisciplinary / Experimental Art
-
Video & Animation
-
Original Music Composition
Please review Creative Categories before submitting.
-
Accepted formats may include based on your category:
-
Any category must include < 200 words artwork Description
-
Artwork Images: JPG (1-5MB per image)
-
Video & Moving Images, Music & Sound + Art: video link that is shareble, accessible
-
Literature + Art (PDF < 10MB)
-
Mixed Media, Sculpture & 3D Art, Conceptual Art: Supporting Multi-angle Video Link(optional)
All exhibitions are presented as high-quality prints. Original physical works are not required.
-
Submissions cannot be edited directly after submission.
If you need to correct information or request withdrawal from review, please contact us at
info@nextgeninterarts.com, call at 781-458-9891Please note:
-
Fees support review operations, jury coordination, and exhibition preparation.
-
Application fees are non-refundable
-
Exhibition fees are non-refundable once paid
-
Yes.
Group submissions are limited to a maximum of four participants per work, and all collaborators must be fully credited and authorized prior to submission.
To confirm your participation in the exhibition participation, payment must be completed by the deadline stated in your notification email.
If payment is not received by the deadline, your entry will be considered withdrawn (See withdrawal), and it will not proceed to the exhibition participation.
2. Judging Process & Fairness
MusicOn+ works with discipline-specific review teams:
-
NextGen InterArts Foundation (NIF) reviews all visual and interdisciplinary art submissions
-
Mayflower Art Center leads the review of original music compositions
Each work is reviewed by professionals familiar with the discipline.
For music-related questions or submissions, please contact:
📩 musiconfestival2022@gmail.com
📞 410-402-0521-
Artwork Submissions are evaluated based on:
-
Originality and authorship
-
Creative thinking and concept
-
Technical clarity (relative to age and experience)
-
Interdisciplinary or experimental potential
AI-generated or plagiarized works are not eligible.
-
Yes.
Music submissions must be original compositions created by the applicant. See Music Application Requirements
If you have any questions, please contact musiconfestival2022@gmail.com, call at 410-402-0521
Performance-only submissions of existing or previously composed works are not accepted.
All works are reviewed without preference to school, country, or background.
Each submission is evaluated on its own merit using consistent criteria appropriate to the applicant’s age group.
Artwork application review typically takes 2–3 weeks. Applicants will receive a notification email once a decision has been made.
3. Exhibition & Presentation
Selected artworks are exhibited at The Blanc Space through:
-
High-quality printed displays (visual works)
-
QR codes linking to full video or process documentation
-
Curated screen displays for video, moving image, and sound-based works
You do not need to mail your original artwork.
-
Yes. Selected works may be photographed or recorded during the exhibition for documentation, educational use, and archival purposes. Documentation typically reflects the exhibition context and may capture multiple artworks within a shared view. Exhibiting artists’ names may appear in on-site materials and in festival documentation (including online updates).
(Note: Attendees may appear incidentally in documentation photographs or video. By attending the exhibition, participants and guardians consent to such incidental capture.)
If you would like individual, focused documentation of your work (e.g., dedicated images or short video), please contact us in advance. Professional photography may involve a service fee depending on scope and availability. Requests must be submitted by July 31, 2026 (11:59 PM ET) at info@nextgeninterarts.com.
After the exhibition concludes, all displayed materials will be carefully removed. High-quality images and documentation of your artwork will be securely stored by NextGen InterArts Foundation for archival purposes only. These records help preserve the history of the festival and may be referenced for future educational or internal documentation.
Your original artwork remains entirely yours and is not retained by the festival or NextGen InterArts Foundation(NIF).
Exhibited students will receive a Digital Certificate of Exhibition issued by NextGen InterArts Foundation(NIF). Participation and evaluation results do not guarantee academic admission, portfolio outcomes, awards, or future opportunities, and MusicOn+ InterArts Festival does not assume responsibility for such expectations.
4. Fees & Payments
Yes.
The application fee is $10 per submitted artwork. $150 per exhibited artwork.This supports:
-
Review operations
-
Jury coordination
-
Exhibition preparation
-
Yes.
-
The exhibition fee is a voluntary participation contribution that supports exhibition production, educational programming, and the ongoing operations of our nonprofit organization. This contribution does not constitute a purchase of services, guaranteed exposure, awards, or instruction.
-
The contribution amount is $150 USD per exhibited artwork.
-
If a work is selected and you choose to exhibit it, the $10 application fee for that work is deducted from the exhibition fee.
Example:
If you submit 3 works ($30 total for application fee) and 2 are selected and confirmed for exhibition:
$150 × 2 − $20 = $280Application fees for works not selected and not exhibited remain non-refundable.
Music applicants have separate submission requirements.
Please review the Music Application Requirements before applying.
If you have any questions about music submissions, feel free to contact at musiconfestival2022@gmail.com, call at 410-402-0521.No.
The application fee is non-refundable, even if:-
Your work is not selected
-
You choose not to exhibit after selection
As a nonprofit organization, all fees are allocated immediately to program operations.
-
All payments will be processed securely through Stripe, a trusted third-party online payment platform.
If you are selected but decide not to proceed with exhibition before payment is made, no exhibition fee will be charged. Please note that application fees remain non-refundable.
No. There are no additional fees for framing, display, installation, or exhibition beyond the stated application and exhibition fees. All standard exhibition-related costs are covered by MusicON+ InterArts Festival and held by NextGen InterArts Foundation (NIF).
Payment Processing Notice: A small processing fee (up to 4%) and platform fee ($0.30) will be added to cover standard transaction costs through Stripe. Please note that some credit card providers may charge additional fees (such as international or currency conversion fees), which are beyond our control.
5. Copyright & Usage
Yes.
You retain full copyright ownership of your work.By submitting, you grant NextGen InterArts Foundation a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to:
-
Display your work in the exhibition
-
Document the festival
-
Share your work on our website, social media, newsletters, and educational materials related to MusicOn+ InterArts Festival
We do not sell or commercially license your work.
-
Attendees may appear incidentally in documentation photographs or video. By attending the exhibition, participants and guardians consent to such incidental capture.
6. Withdrawal & Other Questions
Yes. You may request withdrawal by emailing info@nextgeninterarts.com
Please note:
-
Application fees are non-refundable
-
The exhibition fee is a voluntary contribution supporting exhibition production and educational programs of our nonprofit organization. Payment does not guarantee services, outcomes, awards, or instruction. Exhibition fees are non-refundable once contributed.
-
Withdrawal requests received less than one (1) week before exhibition installation cannot be accommodated.
-
MusicOn+ InterArts Festival provides a Digital Certificate of Exhibition as recognition of participation. While the exhibition supports learning and artistic growth, participation does not guarantee specific academic, portfolio, or admission outcomes, and related expectations fall outside MusicOn+’s responsibility.
If you or your family wish to further support NextGen InterArts Foundation or become a sponsor of the MusicOn+ InterArts Festival, we warmly welcome your generosity. Please visit the link below to learn more about sponsorship and ways to support our nonprofit work.
We sincerely appreciate any support that helps us continue creating accessible, artist-centered public programs.