Music for Social Impact

This international collaborative research project ran from January 2020 – March 2023 and examined the experience of musicians working in socially engaged participatory contexts in Belgium, Colombia, Finland, and the UK.

The project adopted an integrative cross-cultural approach, examining the field as a whole from the perspective of the practitioners who deliver the work. The research involved a systematic in-depth analysis of how practitioners’ backgrounds, training, and beliefs affect the way they carry out their work and assess and improve its effectiveness. The project involved documentary research, surveys, in-depth interviews and organisational case studies.

Project outputs are still in the process of being generated, and will be progressively added to a specially designed web page at https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/research-engagement-services/research/externally-funded-research/music-for-social-impact

The project was funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council grant AH/S005285/1) and co-funded by www.simm-platform.eu.

Collaborators:

Principal investigator: Professor John Sloboda OBE, FBA (Guildhall School of Music and Drama)

Co-investigators: Professor Heidi Westerlund (Sibelius Academy, University of Arts Helsinki); Professor Geoff Baker (Royal Holloway, University of London); Dr An De Bisschop (University College Ghent); Dr Gloria Patricia Zapata Restrepo (Fundación Universitaria Juan N Corpas, Bogota)

Post-doctoral researchers: Dr Jo Gibson (Guildhall School of Music and Drama); Dr Sari Karttunen (CERADA, University of Arts Helsinki); Dr Anemone Van Zijl (University College Ghent); Julian Castro (Fundación Universitaria Juan N Corpas, Bogota)

Honorary research associates: Dr Juan Sebastian Rojas (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia), Dr Alessandro Mazzola (University of Liège)