Free Boston, Cambridge concerts this fall to take place in converted shipping containers

Performing arts nonprofit Celebrity Series of Boston is planning to organize 5,000 concerts in two pop-up locations in Boston and Cambridge from September 20 through 29.

The group announced the plan on June 6 with one big caveat: The concerts will be brief—as in one minute each. Each will also feature but one musician and one performer.

“The idea is to provide powerful, free music experiences for thousands of visitors, and foster intimate connections between performers and audience members,” the organization said in a statement to the Boston Globe.

As for the setting, Celebrity Series of Boston plans to erect specially modified shipping containers on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston and in front of Harvard’s Science Center in Cambridge, with one concert after another running at each location from noon to 6 p.m. during the 10-day run.

The 60 musicians participating over 120 hours in what’s been dubbed “Concert for One” will be paid to perform. They will also come from a variety of genres, including jazz, classical, and world music.

The idea for the concerts sprang from Rayna Yun Chou, a violist who graduated from the New England Conservatory and who staged a similar run in her hometown in Taiwan. According to the Globe, fellow musicians had told her they felt increasingly isolated from their audiences. Such shows are a way around that.