Brydie-Leigh Bartleet is a Lecturer at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. She is actively involved in community music activities both as a researcher and practitioner. She was Research Fellow on the Australia Research Council funded project Sound Links (2007–2008) which examined the dynamics of community music in Australia and the models it represents for music learning and teaching in formal and informal settings. Her current research projects include an Australia Research Council funded project Captive Audiences (2011–2012) which explores performing arts rehabilitation programmes in prisons, and an Australian Learning and Teaching Council funded project on service learning with Indigenous communities (2011–2012). She has been instrumental in developing Australia's Community Music Network and has served as a National Judge for the Music Council of Australia's Music in Communities Awards. She is also on the editorial board for the International Journal of Community Music. As a community music facilitator she has conducted a number of bands, orchestras, choirs and jazz ensembles from Australia, Thailand, Singapore and Taiwan. She has worked as a sessional lecturer at the University of Queensland and a multi-instrumental teacher in schools in Brisbane and Bangkok.

Diana Blom teaches music at the University of Western Sydney and supervises composition and music education postgraduates. Current research projects include tertiary performance issues, the artist in academia, ‘emotion-painting’ through melodic dissonance and e-portfolios. A composer and pianist, current collaborative projects involving new compositions include Shadows & Silhouettes, piano works with a Western–Chinese confluence by Chinese, Australian and Italian composers, with Italian pianist, Antonietta Loffredo; and Australia East and West, Australian viola and piano works, with Perth-based violist, Dawn Bennett. Diana is co-author of Music Composition Toolbox (Science Press), a text for tertiary and secondary composition.

Sture Brändström is Professor and Chair of Music Education at Luleå University of Technology (Sweden). He completed his piano pedagogic certificate and soloist diploma at the School of Music in Gothenburg in 1972 and defended his Doctoral thesis in pedagogy at the University of Umeå 1995. Areas of specialization include education sociology and distance instrumental tuition. Sture Brändström is on the Editorial Board for Research Studies in Music Education.

John Encarnacao is a performer and composer who lectures in music performance and analysis at University of Western Sydney, Australia. He was awarded a Master of Arts in 2009 for his thesis on punk aesthetics in ‘new folk’. This work is currently being expanded to book form for UK publisher Ashgate. Research interests include popular music history and innovation, and music education. Notable recent projects include Haiku 1 (2009) for violin and harpsichord, the debut album by his free improvisation trio Espadrille, First Wave (2010), and Spider and Lamb (2011), the third album by his song-oriented project Warmer.

Susanne Garvis recently completed her PhD in the School of Music at the University of Queensland. Her PhD explored generalist teachers’ self-efficacy for arts education. She has previously worked as a teacher in primary and secondary schools throughout Queensland.

Anna Gower is an Advanced Skills Teacher and is currently working as Director of Learning for Community Music at Monk's Walk School, with responsibility for working with feeder primary schools to develop cross-phase initiatives. Since working as a pilot teacher for the Musical Futures project, Anna has been a firm advocate of informal learning approaches in curriculum music and is currently National Coordinator for Musical Futures working across the UK supporting schools and teachers with exploring the approaches in their schools.

Lily Gower is a practicing Primary School Educator in South Australia who specialises in music education and is currently teaching in a specialist school for students with vision impairment. She has a strong interest in music technology and is a qualified audio engineer as well as a practicing musician. She has conducted research into interactive music video games and children's musical disposition and development.

Janet McDowall is a Lecturer at the University of South Australia where she teaches in early childhood and primary teacher education programmes. Her main teaching area is arts education, particularly music education. She is interested in children's experience of Information and Communication Technologies and children's experience of music in contemporary culture. She has previously conducted research that addressed children's use of music technology in school environments.

Donna Pendergast is Head and Dean of the School of Education, Griffith University. Donna has conducted a number of national research projects of significance including ‘Beyond the Middle’, which investigated literacy and numeracy in middle schooling; and ‘Lifelong Learning and Middle Schooling’. She has completed an evaluation of the Education Queensland Virtual Schooling Service and is often employed as a consultant to review school reform initiatives.

Fiona Sexton is currently Head of Music at Flegg High School in Martham, Norfolk. Her work as a teacher researcher started in 2003 when she participated in Dr Pamela Burnard's research on pupil's perceptions of learning in music at Key Stage 3. Fiona has begun a part-time MEd at Cambridge and she hopes to focus her research on informal learning in music.

Johan Söderman has a PhD in Music Education and is a Senior Lecturer in child and youth studies at Malmö University. He has recently been a visiting scholar at the Department of Music and Music Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research is concerned with hip-hop musicians’ artistic and educational strategies and the academization and institutionalization of the hip-hop culture.

Ketil Thorgersen received his PhD with the thesis ‘Music from the Backyard’ – Hagström's Music Education in 2009 and works as an Assistant Professor at Stockholm University. His research interests are in music educational history, pragmatism and aesthetic philosophy, and music technology.

Maria Typpö studied violin at the JAMK University of Applied Sciences and obtained her MA degree from Jyväskylä University, specialising in multicultural music education. She has taught violin in music schools in Finland and in South Africa for over ten years.

Caroline van Niekerk is Professor of Music Education at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her book publications are mostly in the field of music theory teaching. Recent articles published have focused more on aspects of musical identity.

Mandy Winters is a Principal Lecturer in the School of Education at Oxford Brookes University. Her background is in secondary music and performing arts education. Mandy taught in a number of different secondary schools before moving into teacher education at HEI level, where she has contributed to and led initial teacher education programmes and has developed postgraduate professional development for teachers in school settings. Mandy has worked on projects to disseminate best practice in arts teaching, including the national Creative Partnerships projects. Mandy is currently studying at Cambridge on the Ed D programme, researching conceptions and practices in composition.