Heloisa Feichas is a Lecturer at the School of Music of Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. She received her PhD in Music Education at the Institute of Education, University of London in 2006 with the thesis ‘Formal and Informal Music Learning in Brazilian Higher Education’. She received her Masters degree in Music Education at the same institution in 2000, and a Bachelor in Piano by the School of Music of Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. She has presented papers in conferences and given workshops about Brazilian popular music in Brazil and other countries such as Canada, Germany, Cyprus, England, Holland, Sweden and Norway. She worked in cooperation with the Music School of Pitea from Lulea University in Sweden in 2004/2005. She is currently developing research about collaborative work and musical leadership with Robert Wells from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and starting an exchange programme with Boomtown Music Education in Sweden. Heloisa has been working with music education for nearly 20 years in Brazil teaching children, adolescents and undergraduate students, exploring new teaching methods using creativity, improvisation and popular music.

John Finney is Senior Lecturer in Music Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Prior to this he taught music in secondary schools in Southall, Worcester and Basingstoke before higher degree study and teaching at Reading University. He currently leads the secondary postgraduate course in music within the Cambridge Partnership and teaches on the higher degree courses, ‘Researching Practice’ and ‘Arts, Culture and Education’. As a researcher he is interested in the role of the ‘pupil voice’ within music education and the analysis of current practice in relation to public policy. His most recent research investigates the child-centred progressive tendency in Music Education in England from 1950 to the present day.

Eva Georgii-Hemming is Reader at the School of Music, Theatre and Art, Örebro University, Sweden. She received her PhD in Musicology with Music Education orientation from Örebro University in spring 2005. She teaches undergraduate courses in music education, qualitative research methodology and graduate courses in philosophy of music and sociology of music. Research interests include questions about the concepts of knowledge and narrative, the value and role of music in education as well as in people's lives and the relation between theory and practice in music education. Her research interests have led to presentations at international conferences in Europe and the USA, as well as publications in the journals British Journal of Music Education, Research Studies in Music Education, Music Education Research and Nordic Research in Music Education.

Lucy Green is Professor of Music Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. Her research interests are in the sociology of music education, specialising in meaning, ideology, gender, popular music and informal learning. She is the author of numerous articles and four books on music education, most recently Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (2008). Lucy led the research and development of the informal learning project within Musical Futures. She has given keynote lectures and seminars in many countries within Asia, the Americas and Europe, and serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals including Music Education Research, Radical Musicology, Popular Music and Research Studies in Music Education.

Panagiotis A. Kanellopoulos is Assistant Professor of Music Education at the Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece. He received his MA and PhD in Music Education from Reading University (UK). He has taught music education courses at the University of the Aegean, and was previously Lecturer of Music Education at the Department of Music Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has published articles in international publications and research journals (Resonance, Psychology of Music, Philosophy of Music Education Review, Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education). His research interests include children's musical improvisation, socio-cultural perspectives on music education, as well as philosophy of music education. He is active as a mandolinist, also recording as a session musician; but most of all enjoys improvising with children. Since 1996 Panagiotis has led many experimental educational workshops that focus on collective free improvisation with variable forces, in a wide range of different venues and contexts.

Sidsel Karlsen is Associate Professor of Music Education at Hedmark University College in Hamar, Norway and postdoctoral researcher at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. She holds a Bachelor of Music Education and a Master of Music from the Norwegian Academy of Music, and received her PhD in Music Education at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden in 2007. Prior work experiences include freelancing as a classical singer, working as a community musician and as a festival administrator. Dr Karlsen teaches general music education theory, and has published in Scandinavian as well as international research journals such as International Journal of Music Education and International Journal of Community Music. She is also a contributor to international anthologies such as the recent Exploring Social Justice: How Music Education might Matter and the upcoming Sociology and Music Education. Her research interest lies, among other things, in the area of exploring musical learning within informal contexts outside school.

Chris Philpott taught music and performing arts in English secondary schools for 16 years before moving into initial teacher education. His writing is focused on the pedagogy of teacher education in music. He is currently Head of the School of Education and Training at the University of Greenwich, London and in his spare time he plays cricket.

Lauri Väkevä is Professor of Music Education at Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. Finland. Before publishing his dissertation on John Dewey's aesthetics and philosophy of music education in 2004, he worked as a music teacher in several high schools, as a senior research assistant at the University of Oulu, Finland, and as a lecturer at Sibelius Academy. His current research interests cover philosophy of music education, African-American music, popular music pedagogy, technology of music education and music history. He has written several articles and co-edited two books on these topics, as well as edited a special issue of the Finnish Music Education Journal on popular music pedagogy in 2006.

Maria Westvall is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Music, Theatre and Art, Örebro University, Sweden. She completed her PhD at St Patrick's College/Dublin City University, Ireland in 2007, and she also has a doctoral degree from Örebro University in Sweden. Since 1999 she has taught undergraduate courses in curriculum music to pre-service generalist teachers in Sweden and in Ireland. Presently she teaches music specialist teachers, lectures in music pedagogy and the sociology of music and supervises bachelor and master students. She has also presented her research in several national and international conferences. Her research interests focus on intercultural issues and cultural diversity in the area of music and music education. Her present research interests encompass collaborative studies concerning cultural comparative perspectives in music education as well as student music teachers’ reflections concerning the transition from student to teacher. She is currently carrying out a study among retired professional musicians in Sweden who commenced their musical schooling and education in the 1940s.

Ruth Wright is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Music Education at the Don Wright Faculty of Music, the University of Western Ontario. More than thirty years’ experience as a teacher, musician and researcher in the studio, high school and university sectors have provided her with a depth of practical experience. In 2008, Dr Ruth Wright became a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. She was awarded an Economic and Social Research Council Teaching and Learning Research Project Meeting of Minds Fellowship in 2007 to develop, with Dr Pamela Burnard of Cambridge University, research in the meta-pedagogy of informal learning. She is currently in the final stages of editing a co-authored book entitled Sociology and Music Education for Ashgate Press.