The AEC will make its way to Southeast Asia next month! Members of the Diversity, Inclusion and Gender Equality (DIGE) Working Group of the AEC – Empowering Artists as Makers in Society project (ARTEMIS, 2022-2025) will facilitate a 2-day symposium for Higher Music Education (HME) institutions to explore, discuss and implement practices fostering Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at the local level.
The DEI International Symposium will be hosted on 7-8 October by the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (YST), National University of Singapore, and will combine plenary presentations with interactive activities and thematic discussions in breakout groups.
Facilitators on the panel of experts include:
- Dr. Katja Thomson, Lecturer and Researcher in Music Education at the Sibelius Academy
- Xiangning Lin, Faculty and PhD at the Yong Siew Conservatory of Music
- Monica Vejgaard, President of the European Performing Arts Students’ Association
- Alfonso Guerra, AEC Membership and Finance Coordinator, ARTEMIS Project Manager
The symposium will also offer a chance to learn about the resource package developed by the Working Group titled Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Higher Music Education: An Invitation for Action. The publication is divided into five sections: an invitation, a view into the landscape of DEI in HME institutions, personal experiences and reflections by colleagues from different AEC member institutions, digital resources to support the ongoing DEI work, and a section dedicated to resistance in order to unpack this overarching theme within the context of HME.
Join us!
The AEC and YST would like to kindly invite all teaching and administrative staff, managers, researchers and students in Singapore, representatives from SEADOM partners, and all other peer institutions from neighbouring countries to attend this DEI International Symposium by registering on the following link.
The deadline for registrations is Sunday, 15 September. The symposium will be delivered in English and is free of charge. More information can be found below.
The road so far for the DIGE Working Group
The Diversity, Inclusion and Gender Equality (DIGE) Working Group has been busy in the last months by visiting different AEC member institutions and providing spaces for staff and students to discuss how to build and maintain equitable and inclusive practices, and how such practices can support previously excluded individuals, minority groups and communities.
Besides successful workshops in Lyon and Palermo facilitated in previous years, and the last one being held in Ljubljana back in March, members of the Working Group delivered a workshop at both, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy“ Leipzig on 16 May, and the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) on 3 September, in the frame of the AEC Annual Meeting for International Relations Coordinators 2024. These workshops gathered over 15 and 30 participants respectively, and made particular emphasis on the resistance that can emerge when changes are envisioned and implemented in the institutions.
Upcoming workshops in the frame of the new EU funding
It is not yet over for the Working Group. At the last AEC Annual Congress and General Assembly in November 2023 in The Hague, selected institutions were announced to host the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Higher Music Education: An Invitation for Action workshops. In May 2025, the group will head to the Municipal Conservatory of Pylaia-Chortiatis in Panorama-Thessaloniki for the final workshop in the frame of the ARTEMIS project.
Want to know more about future workshops in the frame of the new EU funding?
AEC Active and Associate members will have the possibility of actively participating in a new set of activities conceived for the period 2025-2028, which includes more DEI workshops in Europe and beyond. A new call for hosting institutions may be issued early next year for all interested institutions to apply.
We will be happy to keep the AEC Community informed and we very much encourage all non-selected institutions from the previous call to give it another try!
For further information, please contact Alfonso Guerra, DIGE Working Group Coordinator at alfonsoguerra@aec-music.eu.
