Gary McPherson's remarks on the back cover sum up my response to this book; ‘This is a book to rejoice over!’, one which will ‘both prompt you to think and inspire you to act’. Community Music Today is a celebration of the breadth and depth of community music-making across the world, described by Kari Veblen in her introductory chapter as an ‘international tapestry of contextual shades, hues, tones and colours’ (p. 1). The book is grounded in discussions of specific contexts and projects, while constantly exploring the question, ‘What is community music?’ The very resistance of community music to neat definitions is significant. In refusing to undergo processes of abstraction, to deny the particularity of local contexts and events, community music practices described here allow broad themes of community, place and inclusivity to underpin their diverse expressions. The tension between community-building and musical ‘excellence’ constitutes a creative space where these projects explore ‘the premise that the personal and social well-being of participants is as important or more important than overt musical instruction’ (p. 6).

The initial section of the book provides an invaluable overview of how community music practices have manifested themselves in North America, in the UK, the Nordic countries, Africa, Australia and New Zealand Aotearoa, and East Asia. While the North American and British chapters give a useful historical perspective, the Nordic chapter explores the epistemological aspects of community music practice as of considerable significance for formal music education:

The authors of this chapter outline three complementary, metaphorical theories of learning – acquisition, participation and knowledge creation – developed by Paavola and Hakkarainen (Reference PAAVOLA and HAKKARAINEN2005). The acquisition metaphor, or monological view, concentrates on the individual learner owning knowledge, and the participation or dialogical outlook emphasises the ‘mastery of a specific community's inherent knowledge’ (p. 52). A further knowledge creation or trialogical view however more adequately ‘addresses the processes of deliberately creating, transforming and advancing knowledge within innovative knowledge communities’, including online creative collaborations (p. 53). Learning is a process of creating and articulating rather than simply assimilating existing knowledge or taking part in communal practices which are already established. The authors of this chapter suggest that community music practices be investigated from the perspective of knowledge creation in order to aid the development of innovative, participatory learning in formal music education, especially with regard to the ‘epistemic agency’ (Paavola & Hakkarainen, Reference PAAVOLA and HAKKARAINEN2005) which arises through collective participation in sociocultural activities, as students begin to take responsibility for their own learning and community-making.

Chapter 5 discusses three different settings for community music programmes on the continent of Africa. In each context music is laden with political significance. In Durban, South Africa, Elizabeth Oehrle had to decide whether to accept funding from an international oil company seen as complicit in the Apartheid system; yet through eventually doing so, with agreed provisos, one of the first arts outreach projects for township residents was founded, offering ‘educational and employment opportunities through the arts for the historically disadvantaged, supporting social transformation and redressing the many wrongs of the past’ (p. 62). In Eritrea, integrated arts education is to be introduced into schools for the first time. Here, the Asmara Music School was established by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front during their struggle for independence in 1985, ‘understanding the importance of fostering and making the indigenous art the base for any movement towards cultural enrichment and change’ (Weldegebriel, p. 70). Post-liberation, there has been a need to develop expertise in evaluating and teaching music performance practices: ‘It has been difficult for musicians to discern the “good” music and who the model musicians and musics are’ (p. 70). An emerging discourse concerning the development of Eritrean music seems to be searching for its own aesthetic understanding. Lastly, an exploration of the isikuti community music-making of the Isukha people of Kenya seeks fresh understandings of the centrality of the role of women, obscured and unacknowledged through traditional male perspectives.

Chapter 6’s discussion of community music-making in parts of Australia and New Zealand Aotearoa draws out themes of place-making, social inclusion and inspiring individuals (Bartleet et al., p. 80). Striking in the Australian example of the Sound Links community music research initiative is the emphasis, in extracts from participant interviews, upon the music itself as the ‘thread’, the underpinning to the work of relationship and community-building; ‘All of that is only possible because of the music. I don't know of any other medium that could do it’ (p. 83). In the remote Northern Territory the ArtStories programme, whether in an urban special needs school or in a remote Indigenous community centre, ‘demonstrates the point where community music, music therapy, and education intersect, collide and are ultimately bound together’ (p. 84). Wellington's Cuba Street Festival is known as the nation's largest community music festival, welcoming local, amateur and semi-professional acts, prioritising inclusiveness and encouraging a sense of connection to place, rather than delineating what sort of music must be played.

The account of community music in East Asia highlights three diverse projects, beginning with an example of a modern Chinese orchestra in Hong Kong, modelled upon the Western orchestra, using instruments newly invented under the Communist party to extend the versatility and range of traditional Chinese instruments, having abandoned its original practice of improvisation in favour of Western-style notated parts for each section of the ensemble. The second programme outlines the practices of a group of folk singers in a Tokyo suburb who meet on a Friday evening, when both professional and non-professional singers meet and sing together for enjoyment, taking part in outreach activities at a local school, within a structure of national and regional contests organised by the national folk song association. The chapter closes with an exploration of the role of China's Red Songs, composed originally to further the doctrine of communism in the post-revolution China of 1949, and encouraged by the government once more, from 2009’s sixtieth anniversary, to ‘promote a harmonized society’ (p. 109). This expression of community music now has different resonances. A singing competition is described as taking place in a shopping centre in an affluent urban area, but the authors ask whether the disenfranchised would feel comfortable enough in this setting, highlighting the question of whether the processes of ‘harmonization’ and ‘consumerization’ can really co-exist in modern China (Yau, p. 113).

The book now changes its focus from its early overviewing chapters, to present individual community music programmes from around the world grouped under the headings of ‘Interconnections’, ‘Marginalized musics and communities’, and ‘Performing ensembles: Artistry, advocacy and social justice’. ‘Interconnections’ highlights the benefits of older and younger people learning and making music together. In a choir in Ontario, Canada, the camaraderie which results from boys, whose voices may be changing, singing next to older mentors, who have empathy with their frustration, has gained the organisation a reputation not only for musical excellence but also for ‘using singing as an agent for character development’ (Beynon & Alfano, p. 122). The learning occurs the other way too. Older singers observe that they learn just as much from the younger people about music and about life. Older people in a concert band, who learn to perform in the context of an Ontario secondary school, frequently play alongside pupils, and find that their respective ages become ‘somehow less visible’ as they engage together in ‘music learning’.

The second chapter in this section wonders whether school pupils do in fact learn the skills they need to engage meaningfully with music throughout the rest of their lives, and poses the question, ‘At what point in the life course does the music education professional's responsibility end?’ (Myers et al., p. 136), reflecting upon the characteristics of ‘adult music learners’. The authors explore the tension between models of music participation based on professional ensembles, where hierarchical structures and public performances are prioritised, and those adult participants who would prefer ‘looser’ structures which might help to develop their ‘reflective skills and self-directedness’ (p. 143). The interface between formal and non-formal settings for music-making and learning is a recurring theme throughout this book, where ‘the role of teacher-as-facilitator shifts and promotes learner autonomy, the core of self-directed learning’, and the assumptions of music participation and the ‘authoritarian place’ of the teacher are challenged (p. 144). Clearly music educators in the classroom have a great deal to learn from their community musician colleagues in terms of re-envisaging the role of the music teacher, and in terms of developing a ‘lifespan perspective’ (p. 145) choosing ‘goals, methods, activities and evaluation procedures that will function effectively for the student as an adult’ (Bowles, Reference BOWLES1999, p.15). The chapter closes with a thought-provoking set of guidelines for implementing a lifespan perspective which aims for a ‘musically engaged society’ where ‘music becomes a metaphor for the humanizing values that enhance the quality of life for all people’ (pp. 148–9).

Chapter 10 discusses how partnerships between school and community musicians in Singapore bring about ‘authentic engagement’, in a multicultural setting where government policy prioritises the preservation of diverse cultural expressions alongside the growth and development of the arts. Authentic community engagement, where ‘the community becomes the author of its own future’ (Ricchiuto, 2010), is explored further through the example of a Texan band for older people, a group who learn the Appalachian dulcimer together, and a Latino student Mariachi ensemble, whose organiser aims to provide a ‘home for Latino students so that they might learn about their own culture through music, gain self-efficacy, and increase their retention rates at college’ (p. 159).

The ‘Opera in the bus’ project in the Netherlands introduces the role of the animateur who works as a catalyst between musicians and audiences, often devising new formats for concerts. The project's aim was to identify key competences of an animateur so that the conservatoire concerned might introduce training for their development. Nine vocal students worked with a community musician to put on musical events taking place on various bus lines. Challenging for the music students, this caused them to ‘reflect on the relationships and balance between the artistic quality and the quality of connecting to different contexts, which led to reflections about their identity as musicians’ (Mak & Kors, 2007). Having learned to work creatively in a new context, the students reported feelings of being given space and freedom as musicians, experiencing the kind of joy in music-making they had not known since childhood, in a setting where the fear of failure, common in the conservatoire experience, was absent. Echoing the knowledge creation metaphor of learning from Chapter 4, the discussion of the role of the animateur concludes, ‘The key part is that together you develop something into something else’ (Smilde, 2009, pp. 278–279).

The notion of community is explored afresh in Chapter 11’s discussion of online jamband communities who connect to learn and share their music-making in new ways. This as a valuable chapter for those uninitiated into online musical networks. The code of conduct of ‘tapers’ brings a fresh outlook on ideas of ‘gifting’ and the forming of ‘kinship ties’ (p. 178). The next chapters focus on those who fall outside social norms in diverse ways. The case studies report on a programme in South Africa and the USA, to ‘divert’ young people from destructive behaviour through music-making, in the anticipation that this will foster healthy social relationships. Further projects reported from the UK and Serbia suggest that in contrast with formal music education, collaborative, immersive community music practices have the potential to engage and empower, in a ‘practice of freedom’ through which people ‘deal critically with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world’ (Shaull, 1970, p. 11).

Chapter 13 begins a particularly inspiring section of the book where, from prison choirs to music-making with homeless people in New York City, notions of what community music entails are being explored on a daily basis as people's lives are transformed. Programmes are reported from the USA, West Africa and Pakistan where young people and adults with a wide range of disabilities are enabled to develop ‘functional musicianship’ (p. 218). The notion of social capital is central to the reporting of an NGO-led programme in under-served communities of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where ‘musical practices demarcate cultural and aesthetic frontiers and are a means of socio-political mobilization’ (p. 232). Here, Sistema-like, a community is attracted to a repertoire that has been far from their experience, as students come to feel included and empowered through taking part in a string orchestra. The live symphony concert allows Palestinian and Israeli children to come together in the Kadma programme in and around Haifa, while in a bilingual Arab/Israeli preschool issues of whose songs should be sung together raises sensitive questions concerning the meeting of modern and traditional cultural expressions. Their careful negotiation brings hope for a just peace (p. 243).

The final part of the book investigates the underpinning principles for performing ensembles in diverse contexts around the world. Choral singing in the USA, for instance, is remarkably popular, involving one in six of the 18–64 age group (p. 249), and enables people to affirm their identity together, highlighted especially in the LGBT choirs whose raison d’être is changing as civil liberties are achieved and priorities of education and advocacy turn more towards musical excellence. The New Horizons ensembles of the USA, Canada and Ireland emphasise not merely rehearsing for performances but rather teaching participants how to play better (p. 261), helping people to ‘find their way into the [wider] community’ in the process (p. 264). An account of the civil wind bands of Brazil reveals a dual focus on music and citizenship, providing the only schools of music in some areas, ‘the people's conservatory. . . a cellar of the symphonic orchestra musicians in Brazil (Salles, Reference SALLES1985, p. 11).

Chapter 18 recalls the considerations of whose songs should be sung in Chapter 15. A choir of young Ismaili Muslims in Vancouver employs the traditions of intellectual discernment, engaging reason, ethics and aesthetics to address questions of whose music the choir should sing, drawing as it does from 25 countries from around the world. The programmes chosen for performance often include familiar alongside unfamiliar music, traditional and contemporary, spiritual and secular. Gradually the choir has developed ways of combining traditional Ismaili chants with songs of other faiths, adding elements of popular genres such as rap, for instance: ‘The choir's commitment to their ethical and historic traditions guided them every step of the way . . . Singing became a catalyst for dialogue about faith, identity, personal stories, histories, music, and life.’ (p. 276). Community music-making here becomes about establishing a safe place to critically enquire, make meaning, explore diverse cultural contexts, including a Muslim/Western identity, to create together alongside feeling, thinking, dreaming together (p. 280).

The penultimate chapter considers the sustainability of community music practices across the world in the light of globalisation's threat to traditional music-making and the social changes such as urbanisation, which cause many of these musical practices in everyday life to disappear. Schippers and Letts give examples from China and Vietnam, where government attempts to preserve musical traditions range from the static conception of ‘rescue’ in favour of ‘keeping alive’ or ‘inheriting’. For many East African countries, whose borders were drawn by former colonisers, the notion of national traditions is difficult, and Western-imposed systems of education have tended to suppress local cultures. Despite these pressures local music traditions do survive and examples from Latin America illustrate recent re-encounters with indigenous traditions (Letts, Reference LETTS2006, pp. 111, 130). The authors set out nine domains of community music, characteristics of community music–making which point to factors crucial to sustainability, including ‘Links to schools’ and ‘Engaging pedagogies’ (p. 291).

The final chapter forms a helpful compendium of resources for community music practitioners, researchers and advocates across the world. I would recommend this book to anyone involved in community music, especially to those seeking insight into what community music is all about. It represents a significant contribution to the literature, introduces major research themes, and brings readers up to date with a broad spectrum of what community music-making entails around the globe today.