The Project

The purpose of the MORE project is to make European citizens, and in particular young people and musicians, more aware of the existence of a shared cultural space. The fruit of its historical heritage, as well as more recent contributions, Europe's cultural diversity can be a driving force and source of richness, on condition that the people partaking in this diversity manage to live harmoniously together, as part of a positive dynamic simultaneously embracing a solid sense of self-identity and mutually enriching dialogue with others. To make this happen, it is essential that young people be made more aware of the concept of Otherness, in the broadest sense. Art, and in particular music –by nature a social activity– has the capacity to federate and transcend individual energies to create a coherent whole, at the service of a collective project with a wholesome and civilizing effect.
This is the thinking behind the MORE project: foster intercultural education by music by drawing on the objectives of the Culture program, the latter consisting in encouraging exchanges and mobility between artists, their works, and intercultural dialogue.

Coordinated by the Cité de la musique, in partnership with several leading music teaching and dissemination bodies in Europe, MORE highlights the potentiality of orally transmitted music, and its capacity, inside Europe, to act as an intercultural tool in musical education. Indeed, these musics, in virtue of their intrinsically collective nature, encourage social links. MORE wishes to provide artists, educators and cultural policy representatives, access to Best Practices at play all over Europe as regards musical education, so as to foster vigorous intercultural models.

A number of actions have been organized, for the purpose of preparing an overall situation review, and exchanging Best Practices:

• Two symposiums established the educational and anthropological basis of interculturality, with contributions from participating teachers.
• Two summer schools for young musicians implemented a number of practical models to enable intercultural transmission: raising awareness of an unfamiliar musical tradition; encouraging musical exchanges between purveyors of different traditions; identifying common features between the various traditions; exploring the forms of learning originating in orality and improvisation, etc.
• The goal of the closing event was to share exemplary experiences with young tutors in order to prepare, for a closing conference, a review of the various project actions.

Thanks to artists, teachers and educational experts coming together from several European countries, thus embracing a wide palette of backgrounds (cultural establishments, amateur art centers, higher education establishments), MORE succeeded in exploring a broad and deep range of issues and in highlighting the number of heartwarming success stories, spanning the gamut from music education for young children to further training for musicians.

Project aims

• Strengthen intercultural dialogue through music education
• Emphasize the value of orally transmitted music for intercultural education
• Promote awareness and professional interest in intercultural education through traditional and folk music
• Mutualising knowledge and experiences in the field of intercultural music education at a European level
• Undertake exemplary actions
• Experimenting with new and promising educational models
• Benefit from European partnerships to share artists and pedagogues