Campaign wins International Award

Music: Play for Life has been named
Overall Winner of the International Music Council’s (IMC) Musical Rights Awards for 2011.

Founded in 1949 by UNESCO, the IMC is the world's largest network of organisations, institutions and individuals working in the field of music.

The Award was accepted on behalf of the Music Council of Australia by Music: Play for Life campaign director, Tina Broad, who joined more than 200 delegates from music organisations all over the world at the IMC’s recent 4th World Forum on Music in Tallinn, Estonia recently.

Tina said: “Music: Play for Life stands on the shoulders of the many thousands of musicians, teachers, business and community leaders who work with us at the grassroots to help encourage more music making in Australia - in schools, communities, everywhere. The fact that our collective efforts have been recognised internationally is a great boost.”

In his citation as convenor of the international jury which conferred the Awards, Einar Solbu (Norway), said about Music: Play for Life:

“The comprehensiveness and indeed thoroughness of the programme, the vision it represents, and the endurance with which it has been implemented step by step over a decade, stands out as an excellent model for other music councils and national music organisations.”

Inaugurated in 2009, the IMC Musical Rights Awards are given to programs or projects that support, in an exemplary way, one or more of the five musical rights which underpin the work of the International Music Council.

These are:

the right for all people to have the freedom to express themselves musically; to learn musical languages and skills; to have access to musical involvement through participation, listening, creation and information; and – for professional musicians - to have the right to create and own their musical works.

Programs which run under the Music: Play for Life banner include the annual nationwide, government-sponsored school music program Music: Count Us In, which involves over 500,000 school students and provides music training to more than 2,000 classroom teachers. Other Music: Play for Life programs include the national community music mentoring program, the Music in Communities Network, the annual FLAME Awards for Music Education in Schools, and the music and health program, Making Music Being Well.

Run by the Music Council of Australia, Music: Play for Life is a partnership with the Australian Music Association, the Australian Society of Music Education and the Australian Music Therapy Association.

Other winners of the IMC Musical Rights Awards for 2011 are Hearts in Harmony, from Barcelona, Spain, a program to encourage and train choir leaders to provide more musical opportunities for disabled people; an initiative of the Hong Kong Institute of Education to preserve an important musical tradition by teaching Cantonese Opera in Hong Kong Schools; aprogram to develop new choral music in Africa, Espace Akto, hosted by the African Academy of Choral Music (Democratic Republic of Congo); a German-based initiative to provide music training and mentoring to young people disadvantaged by war, through the creation of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq and the Polifonio Network for Music, hosted by the European Association of Conservatoires, for a resource-sharing program which has enhanced tertiary music education in Europe and beyond.