NAMM
stepped up to support the first China Conference on Music Education with the
Chinese Society for Music Education (CSME) during Octobers Music China. Music education
experts from China and the U.S. provided insights into different methodologies,
education theories and current best practices in music education. A convened
group of around 1,500 Chinese music educators, researchers, and post-graduate
students participated in the first free national music education gathering.
In 2006,
we held the Music Education Summit, which played a significant role in
developing Chinas music education theory and sharing best practices, said conference organizer Wu Bin,
Secretary General of China Society of Music Education. Nine years later, NAMM proposed to
hold a China music education conference during the Music China show, and it had
a particular resonance for us. Within two weeks, registration for the
conference exceeded 1500, demonstrating a warm welcome from the music educators
and practitioners as well as the great influence of our Society and the invited
speakers.
Keynote
speakers included Victor Fung, Professor of Music Education at South Florida
University, Anne Fennell, Performing Arts Chair and Instrumental and Music
Composition Teacher at Mission Vista High School in Vista, CA, and Gabriella
Musacchia, Assistant Professor at the Department of Speech-Language Pathology
and Audiology at the University of the Pacific.
We hope
this event helped to support Chinas developing music education
programs with forward-looking, relevant and engaging programming, said Betty Heywood, NAMM director
of international affairs. This first free subscription conference in China brought
together leading lights and post-graduates who share NAMM?s vision of a more musical world
where all children have the opportunity to learn music.
Teachers
and researchers from all over China, including Tibet and Inner Mongolia, made
it to the conference some of them flying more than six hours to attend.
Compared
with nine years ago, today, we have a quite different situation and development
level thanks to NAMMs influence in the world and their support to us, continued Mr. Wu.
For sure, we will focus on the
future, and we hope that NAMM will continue to support the development of music
education in China. We will also exert our utmost efforts to drive the
development of education in China and further communication between China and
U.S. in music.
