THE ISME-GIBSON INTERNATIONAL AWARDS 2010

THE ISME-GIBSON INTERNATIONAL AWARDS 2010 WERE AWARDED ON THE 29th ISME WORLD CONFERENCE IN BEIJING

Professor Jiaxing Xie received one of the Awards for the project Teaching children to sing songs of the home area which is aimed at minority children in Guangxi in the western part of China where the loss of traditional music is very serious. The aim is to restore the local musical traditions by training and promoting local folk singing of music teacher in the area so that more children will be able to learn these musical heritage.

The second Award went to Mr Bin Wu, Vice chair of the Chinese Society for Music Education, for the project Music education in Chinese schools with special focus on the Western regions, which deals with the situation of music education in the Western part of China where there are certain minority groups. The aim is to provide the music teachers and children there with information, teacher training and teaching materials. Thousands of children are estimated to benefit from this project.

ISME has its own calendar

ISME has its own calendar. Within ISME we don't count years but "biennia", that is periods of two years. Now one biennium has ended and another one has begun. I thank the out-going Immediate Past President Liane Hentschke for work for ISME over several years and I welcome and wish good luck to the new ISME President Graham Welch and the President Elect Margaret Barrett.

I have experienced an intense and greatly rewarding biennium as ISME President. ISME is a continuously growing organization – not only in numbers, but also in perspectives and in activities. So when we now move into a new biennium we do this with our most urgent aims spelled out in a strategic plan. The intention is that this will increase ISME's efficiency in leading and supporting music education worldwide.

The 29th ISME World Conference in Beijing that finished on 6th August attracted nearly seven thousand participants and contained a wide number of presentations, workshops and concerts and a large exhibition. This conference adds a new chapter in ISME's history and in the history of music education. It will have a long influence inside China as well as internationally.

With this conference the name 'Beijing' has taken on yet another meaning and so has the name 'China'. One feature of the ISME calendar is that we tend to refer to previous conferences by the hosting city's or the hosting country's name. In the future we will not call this as the 29th ISME World Conference in Beijing 2010. People will just say: "Do you remember Beijing" or "China! That was great!"

Thanks to all who made this conference a living manifestation for music education!

Håkan Lundström
Immediate Past President