Development of Community Music Projects

🥇Uniservitate Award 2022 winning experience

SUMMARY

Inclusive community music as spiritual nourishment and space for the culture of encounter

Inspired by Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to freely participate in the community’s cultural life, enjoy the arts and share in scientific advancement and its benefits. The undergraduates acknowledge that, unfortunately, this right is not always granted to society, which is prejudiced and puts obstacles to the artistic participation of people with disabilities, different socioeconomic and cultural conditions, and other factors. 

Therefore, the students of the Master’s Degree programme in Inclusive Music Education/Community Music develop, plan, execute and evaluate a community music project with social outreach to integrate and include socially excluded or discriminated populations. Such community arts projects are developed for six months to provide access to cultural activities and creative expression to different population groups. 

When implementing the project, university students learn specific contents of pedagogy and musical didactics to work with particular target groups and what would be the consequences of the process. They also learn about culture management: management and didactic planning, collaboration with partner organizations, public relations and the development of evaluation and communication tools, coordination of potential partner institutions, spaces, times, participants, intermediate goals, ultimate goals, public communication, using public relations for lobbying, how to evaluate the activities and the project, documentation and public relations.

Some of the projects the undergraduates implemented were the following: 

In collaboration with a local service for young immigrants, the Ingolstadt Community Orchestra was open to anyone in the community interested in playing music with others, with no musical prerequisites. Likewise, one undergraduate used the space of a train station building to offer weekly music and theatre sessions available to everyone. In this project, during five months, people could join the creative sessions free of charge.

Another student founded the “Apropos” Choir for homeless people in an empty store in a large shopping mall in Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart and the high culture of classical music.

This Master’s degree programme is the first attempt in Europe to merge social inclusion and community music to make it accessible for everyone and to inspire others to follow suit. The programme methodology and the principles underpinning the community music project are inclusive and stress cultural democracy.

Hence, community arts projects have become important community pillars, such as the Apropos choir in Salzburg and the community music orchestra in Ingolstadt, because they provide visibility and sound to the voices of minorities: homeless people, people or groups subject to discrimination and violence, communities living in poverty, at risk or in slums, asylum seekers, refugees and migrants. They also reach children and adolescents in vulnerable situations, people with disabilities, health problems or addictions, unemployed or in educational centres.  Most students’ projects are published in the local newspaper or on a local radio station.

This experience shows how to take care of essential values and avoid spiritual fasting since any form of art is always a testimony of tenderness, faith in humanity and fraternity.

PLACE OF IMPLEMENTATION