MOMRI 2024 World Summit on Music in Peacebuilding

Relational Changes for Peacebuilding through Musicking

October 18-20, 2024

From October 18-20, MOMRI held its first World Summit in Tokyo to commemorate the 10th anniversary of its founding on October 18, 2014. The theme of “Relational Changes for Peacebuilding through Musicking” was chosen through a process of online dialogues between the eleven participants, during lively monthly Zoom conversations that had started in June 2023.

On Friday 18 we held a Lecture-Concert featuring Gideon Danja, and on the weekend (19 and 20), a series of brainstorming sessions. In total we had eleven participants from various parts of the world, in addition to the four MOMRI Research Fellows:

• Africa: Gideon Danja (Nigeria)
• Asia: Ai Nakatsuka (Japan)
• Europe: Geoff Baker (UK)
• North America: Mary Cohen and Kevin Shorner-Johnson (USA)
• Oceania: Gillian Howell (Australia).
• South America: Andrea Rodriguez-Sanchez (Colombia)

The Lecture-Concert featured the song “We Are The Future” by Gideon Danja, performed by Himiko and students from the Tokyo College of Music High School. (Listen to the song here). During the lecture, Danja shared his passion for the gulum, a string instrument that was played by his grandfather and remains a symbol of his people’s ancestral arts and traditions. Danja shared several ways in which these cultural treasures can be preserved and made sustainable despite a series of severe onslaughts.

The Orientation Session was an opportunity to clarify which values we think are most important to ensure constructive “relational changes,” and we agreed on a short list:

• Honesty, curiosity, listening, being present and available, being open, giving full attention.
• Compassion, empathy, generosity, appreciation, gratitude, respect, connection.
• Bringing out the best in self and others, supporting the flourishing of all people.

This series of values strengthens MOMRI’s mission statement that was established in 2014, "To pursue a multidisciplinary investigation of the potential application of music in peacebuilding activities," clarifying how we want to accomplish this. The ensuing sessions were devoted to in-depth discussions of the following challenges in the field of Music in Peacebuilding, organized into Research, Practice, Education and Future Vision: evaluating where we are regarding our awareness of the potential application of music to improve our lives and societies, and where we would like to go from here.

Finally the Wrap-Up Session allowed several long-term projects to emerge, with each participant expressing their interest in continuing this collaboration together. We would like to thank all the people who have made these three wonderful and productive days possible, and with great anticipation, we have started preparing for the next MOMRI event to be held in 2026.