Featuring Naoyuki Mouri, founder and former principal of the C&S Music School

On May 23, 2024 MOMRI organized an in-depth and focused dialogue between Mr. Naoyuki Mouri, the founder and former director of the C&S Music School in Fukuoka, and a delegation of seven students from Laval University, Quebec, Canada. The students are affiliated with the Ikeda Studies Center of Laval University, devoted to the research and practice of dialogue, peace and global citizenship. They wanted to hear directly from Mr. Mouri how he was able to establish a school that helps Japanese high school students who abandoned their studies to get back in the saddle with a curriculum based on rock & pop music education.

In 2020 MOMRI collaborated with Beyond Skin (Northern Ireland) to bring the C&S Music School in Japan and the Glengormley High School in Northern Ireland together, to produce a song called Far Away, that inspired the documentary Don’t Stop the Music. The film narrates the story of the song, focusing on the experiences of two of the students.

One of the most moving moments in the one hour exchange was when Mr. Mouri shared the main reason why he established an alternative school based on rock & pop music education in 2001. He was not an educator, and as a professionally trained musician himself, he wanted to provide opportunities for musical education for young people. However, it is when he saw how many prospective students needed psychosocial support that he found his mission: to be of service to the student population affected by “school refusal.”

This was the last event of a one week trip for the Laval students, who returned to Quebec the next day. They went home with a concrete example of how to apply the principles and values they are learning at the Ikeda Studies Center, with some of them entertaining ambitious plans to build their dream organization or institution, inspired by the example of the C&S School and Mr. Mouri’s dedication.