The Global Music Centre is one of Finland’s musical institutions. Its key task is to collect, record and distribute information about musical cultures from around the world. The Centre aims to increase understanding among listeners, researchers and music-makers of the individual and collective values in music, and of the importance of music as a means of communicating and strengthening identity. Thus the Centre aims to promote understanding between people across cultural boundaries, through music. Equality and respect for others are basic values in the work of the Centre.
The activities of the Global Music Centre are funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture.
The Global Music Centre operates in collaboration with KSL Civic Association for Adult Learning, the Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology, the Finnish Society of Composers and Lyricists, the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas and the City of Helsinki.
In many communities around the world, women are important culture bearers fostering the transmission of local traditions to future generations. However, women also forge new roles in their communities in order to express themselves and to get their voices heard. In these efforts for empowerment, music can serve as a tool for refashioning oneself and one’s place in society, thereby building futures that might not have been possible otherwise. Music also frequently serves as a space for imagination and dreaming, for experimentation with alternative ideas about the past, the present, and the future.
The aim of this symposium is to discuss the agency of women musicians worldwide, and the ways in which they use music to construct imaginary or real futures for themselves.