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For the Love of Music! HARMAN Rocks Out Globally on Make Music Day

The summer solstice is a milestone for many reasons – in the northern hemisphere, the earth has its maximum tilt to the sun and we enjoy the longest day of the year AND, for the last 36 years, it is Make Music Day. Launched in 1982 in France as the Fête de la Musique, Make Music Day is a free celebration inviting anyone from the participating 800 cities in 120 countries to experience the joy of making music together outside in their neighborhoods, in public spaces and parks.

Since music is integral to HARMAN’s heritage, we have once again teamed up with the Make Music Alliance to serve as the official sound of Make Music Day Street Studios.

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In partnership with Found Sound Nation, HARMAN hosted Street Studios with local producers in nine cities around the world, including Queretaro, Mexico, Bangalore, India, Budapest, Hungary, Moscow, Russia, New York, NY, Detroit, MI, Mountain View, CA, Los Angeles, CA and Stamford, CT. For each mobile recording street studio, HARMAN coordinated with producers to set-up tables with AKG mics, JBL speakers, and a variety of instruments and invited passersby to join in a completely improvised music creation session. At the end of the day, each producer mixed down one track, using only the material recorded on-site, to share the sounds of their city with the world.

From noon till 5pm EST on June 21st, HARMAN and local music producers hosted a pop-up Street Studio in downtown Stamford, home of HARMAN’s headquarters, where passers by used musical instruments and HARMAN recording technology to compose, sing, record audio, and become part of this spontaneous, collaborative production of original music.  Local music producers, Zubin Hensler and Ricky Nigaglioni, hosted the HARMAN Street Studio and edited the audio recorded at the Stamford location into one-of-a-kind, local music track to be shared online. Stamford Mayor David Martin and HARMAN President and Chief Executive Officer Dinesh Paliwal participated in the festivities, lending their talents to the musical recording.

HARMAN’s Mountain View, CA office in collaboration with Samsung hosted a pop-up music studio at the Samsung Clyde Street office on June 29. Local music producer, Dahlak Leon, hosted the HARMAN Street Studio and edited the audio recorded into a local music track.

Known for our iconic JBL brand that is rooted in Los Angeles history, HARMAN also hosted a pop-up studio at the HARMAN Experience Center located in Northridge, California. HARMAN employees gathered to celebrate the power of music by recording audio alongside icons including One Direction drummer and Broadway star, Evaride; Bass player for Lady Gaga, Jonny Good; and American Idol contestant, Trevor Holmes, among others. Local music producer, Callie Ryan, hosted the HARMAN Studio and edited the audio recorded onsite into one-of-a-kind, local music track to be shared online.

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In addition to our fun-filled and engaging activations with the pop-up street studios on Make Music Day, several HARMAN offices celebrated the power of music with our employees. On June 15, more than 300 employees celebrated Make Music Day at HARMAN`s Garching, Germany office. The “Grilling me Softly” burger truck was on hand as employees enjoyed a live graffiti painting performance, soccer goal wall shooting, and rides on the JBL Sound Sofa. Employees also had the opportunity to enter the Sound of Innovation contest by making visits to the new Consumer Showroom and Car Audio Lab and visit the Technology Showcase featuring automobiles and technologies shown at CES, Geneva Motor Show and Beijing Auto Show. Amongst the cool prizes were an original Bayern Munich jersey signed by Germany`s national soccer star and JBL brand ambassador Jérôme Boateng as well as JBL E65BT headphones, custom made for the German National Ice Hockey Team and other exciting prizes.

HARMAN’s Nova Santa Rita, Brazil office held three days of celebrations from June 19-21 for employees, giving them the opportunity to express their gifted musical talents. Twenty-five

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employees from various departments of the company organized themselves in solo or band presentations, guaranteeing in the 3 days of event more than 6 hours of great songs.

HARMAN Shenzhen in cooperation with the Tang Muhai Culture and Arts Development Fund under the Shanghai Overseas Chinese Foundation launched a young musical talent cultivation program, to mark the global celebration of the annual Make Music Day. The Tang Muhai Culture and Arts Development Fund under the Shanghai Overseas Chinese Foundation has overseen musical talent cultivation programs since it was established, providing extremely talented youth with training, development and performing opportunities, and recommending the most talented to professional institutions at home and abroad.

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HARMAN’s Mr. David Jin, Chairman and President, Northeast Asia and Greater China and conductor Mr. Tang Muhai kicked off the cooperation at the ceremony. After the addresses, young musicians played beautiful piano melodies for the audience. HARMAN’s professional tuning and amplification systems perfectly reinforced the skillful playing of the young musicians, who won big applause from the audience. After the ceremony, Tang Muhai and other guests toured the HARMAN Flagship Store in Shanghai, where they learned about many innovative technologies in HARMAN products and their acoustic principles, and experienced for themselves Harman’s innovative product design and premium audio quality.

On June 29, our Stamford headquarters hosted, “Bring Your Music Maker to Work,” a half-day event to engage HARMAN employees’ children in music-related activities and teach them how HARMAN contributes to the world of music. The day started with opening remarks on HARMAN’s impact on the music industry, following Pinot’s Palette hosting a musical painting session. The children also created their own song with Harmonica’s gifted by HARMAN, and brought home piano keyboard shaped cakes. The event concluded with a Southern inspired BBQ for all Stamford employees and their children.

Fun-filled musical activations also occurred at our Novi and Vernon Hill offices. Our Novi location welcomed employees to play guitar hero, coinciding with a mini, outdoor concert featuring employees singing and dancing on the stage; and our musically gifted employees at HARMAN’s Vernon Hill location entertained an audience of staff by creating music with guitars.

HARMAN Professional Solutions and HARMAN Consumer UK Division celebrated Make Music Day by creating their own music video to the song, “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Pees! Our employees leveraged piano keyboards, guitars, and other instruments – as well as their cool dance moves – to create a lively video.

Make Music Day was a joy to all HARMAN employees, reminding us that it is wonderful to work for a company that lives, works and breathes music. Anyone and everyone can make music – on any day of the year in any season. HARMAN is continually working hard to develop the tools to help artists create and audiences enjoy. We hope that through our HARMAN Inspired community outreach efforts, particularly around music education, that we inspire even more people to find their inner music maker and share their talents with the world – on June 21 and every day!

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