Music & Peacebuilding

This second episode focuses on the Tacoma Refugee Choir and explores its mission, the philosophy of creating collaborative and shared spaces, placemaking, and a dialogue about the language of refugees and who gets to choose the language that defines the stories of who we are. Within decentered choral pedagogy, we examine notions of Empowering Song and the themes of risk and exploration within dece...

This first episode explores the backgrounds of Erin Guinup and Orlando Morales, directors of the Tacoma Refugee Choir. This episode looks at histories of belonging, how we cross thesholds into belonging, and the role of the voice and choir in cultivating belonging. Exploring Erin Guinup's travels abroad, we look at how travel opens our acceptance of hospitality and gives us the life changing...

The conclusion of this series on dancefloors, electronic dance music, and house music examines how dancefloors offer space to imagine differently. The episode looks at how the synchronous movement and entrainment of bodies propels bodies to move closer, creating a sense of “thickening” that moves toward social cohesion. We look at the importance of utopian visions to peace and reconciliation work...

Part two of this three-part series on dancefloors and belonging examines how we experience intimacy and a sense of vague belonging. We look at the complex conflicted feelings of our lives that introduce paradox in a queer approach to analysis that draws upon magical realism. We examine the notion of an intimate public and how our constructions and projects of a “we” inform our feelings of belongin...

Part one of the three-part series on Together, Somehow explores structures and politics of belonging, cultural tightness and looseness, and understandings of translocal culture. Looking specifically at nightlife and rave scene subculture, we look at how doors are managed and how individuals creates translocal bonds of belonging across different nightlife scenes.  Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta is As...

World Music Drumming offers opportunities for teachers to enrich general music curricula through ensemble-centered explorations of diverse musics. This episode with Patty Bourne, director of World Music drumming, explores the legacy of Will Schmid, impacts on teachers, expansions of musical visions, and the future of this curricula. Alongside the voices of Lynn Brinckmeyer, Michael Checco, Fabian...

This interview with Dr. Mica Estrada explores her work in researching belonging, social identity, and kindness. Beginning with an exploration of impostor phenomena, we first explore stories about Donna Hicks’s direct experience at being affirmed and welcomed. Returning to Estrada’s research, we examine the impact of Dr. Kellman and the development of a social integration model of self-efficacy, id...

This is the first in a two-part series on dignity, belonging, awe, humility, kindness, and identity. In this first episode, we spend time with Dr. Donna Hicks to discuss the magic of dignity language, a South African heritage of Mandela Consciousness and Ubuntu, and expansions of the self through pathways of humility, vulnerability, and awe.  The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevi...

Part two of the conversation with Dr. Nina Kraus examines how we find our sense of belonging within our sonic worlds. Speaking of how sound connects us, we enter dialogues about modulations of harmony, synchrony, the power of singing, and how musical training may make us more emotionally sensitive to harmonic cues within human voice. Turning to bilingualism, we examine gains of bilingual abilities...

In this two-part series with Dr. Nina Kraus we examine the neuroscience of our hearing brains, exploring how we make meaning from our sonic worlds. In episode 1, we look at the afferent and efferent journeys as our brains construct meaning from sonic experience. Examining reading, we understand how reading is powered by the strength of our recognition of frequency, harmonics, FM sweeps, and other...

Exploring the research of Batja Mesquita and other cultural psychologists and social psychologists, this episode examines how emotions are enacted between humans. Challenging the US-centric worldview that emotions are only within an individual, Mesquita notes that emotions are continuously enacted within culture and relationships. Our podcast contrasts differences in Japanese orientations with ama...

This episode explores the work of Taína Asili, her album Resiliencia, and the many voices that inspired her work in this album. As we understand notions of belonging, we explore Puerto Rican heritage, alternative voices of punk culture, language of re-membering, and the work of dismantling frameworks of scarcity to find deeper forms of belonging to the land and each other. Exploring the work of So...

What does it mean to belong? This question and other fascinating questions on belonging will be explored in season four of the music and peacebuilding podcast. Our topics will include musical reclamations, musical identities, the neuroscience of sound and belonging, the psychology of our emotional lives, belonging and refugee choirs, peacebuilding, and the reparative work of world music drumming....

This is the second in a two-episode series exploring the legacy of Daisaku Ikeda and the practice of dialogue. In this episode, we ask how wisdom, courage, and compassion is lived and practiced through music and dialogue. In particular, we look at how genuine dialogue might bring out the best in ourselves as we look to bring out the best in the other. Together with Olivier Urbain, Kevin Maher, and...

This is a two-episode series exploring the legacy of Daisaku Ikeda and the practice of dialogue through interconnectedness and a human revolution of courage, wisdom, and compassion. In this episode, we explore the legacy and history of Johan Galtung, Ikeda, Toda, Makiguchi, and Oliver Urbain’s groundbreaking work to explore music and peacebuilding. Exploring histories and models of violence, we co...

This second episode of a two-part series with Kiku Day explores shakuhachi soundings of cultural translation and peacebuilding. With the famous honkyoku piece, Tamuke, we encounter the problems of cultural translation and how a piece about passages has been problematically recast as a requiem. The episode ends with a discussion of ryu or localized schools and the sounding of the robuki wave during...

This first episode of a two-part series with Kiku Day explores shakuhachi history and how the shakuhachi is taught and learned. Central to shakuhachi are traditions of flow and the use of silence or absence through the language of ma. Recordings from Wild Ways are generously provided by the composer, performer, and record label. 15ZWATlBgcYPn7lBZWgq The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted...

Bringing together Dan Shevock, Jon Rudy, and Tyné Angela Freeman, this is a reflective episode about the first three years of this podcast. Exploring notions of story, spirituality, theoretical framework, and the notion of a lived walk, this is a slow, expansive, and reflective move through the first three years of podcasting. Join our celebration! The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted b...

Samul nori represents a modern percussion genre of four things - the changgo, buk, k’kwaenggwari , and ching. Originally known as p’ungmul and nongak this genre was transformed as dynamic as it entered concert spaces. Comprised of karak that dynamically shift weight and feel, this genre represents the balance of Yin and Yang and alignments with hohŭp, or the breath. Katherine In-Young Lee investig...

In this podcast, we take a tour with Dr. Brent Talbot on Talbot and Mantie’s research into American collegiate a cappella singing through the lens of agency, performativity, and leisure. Our performances of gender, sexuality, and identity are often rooted within larger frameworks and can be liberated from these frameworks in exploring new ways of being through musical practices. We close this two...

In this podcast, we take a tour with Dr. Brent Talbot Balinese gamelan  through the lens of agency and performativity. Exploring diverse cultures of Bali and the US, we ask questions of how we construct agency and stories of our performances in collectivist and individualistic contexts. We take the time to explore Talbot’s resource, Gending Rare and the work of Made Taro.  While US notions of agen...

Wendy Kroeker explores her research on peacebuilding and conflict resolution in the Philippines and the island of Mindanao. Exploring the root causes of violence, we examine histories of colonialism impacting Moro, Lumad, and the Filipino residents. The podcast examines notions of transgenerational trauma, group identity, and retutoring the body through the practice of dialogue.  Kroeker holds the...

Masayo Ishigure is a world-renowned performer of the Japanese koto. This conversation explores the legacies of Tadao Sawai, Kazue Sawai, Michio Miyagi, and Japanese traditions of composing for the koto. Exploring notions of wabi-sabi, the Meiji period, and hogaku, this podcast looks at the ethical demands of cross-cultural composition. We open up fundamental questions about how a culture changes a...

Drawing upon the input of 20 activist musicians, Dr. Juliet Hess wrote a book about building curricula that support noticing, naming, and coming to voice. Building from Paulo Freire’s understandings from the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Hess offers a curriculum that asks students to construct songs, discuss soundscapes, and notice and name the structures that surround our expressions of music. Explo...

The music of the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan offers opportunities to explore the importance of poetry, rhythmic flexibility, and sacred space within wellness and healing. Dr. Benjamin Koen is a leader in medical ethnomusicology who has written texts and articles exploring Maddâh or Maddoh and the practice of this sung poetry as an expression that promotes psychological flexibility for new perspe...