Friday, October 10, 2025 @ 7:30 pm – 10:15 pm – A.R. Rahman is a living legend – a musical innovator whose impact spans continents and generations. Known for his extraordinary ability to fuse traditional Indian music with contemporary sounds, he’s earned iconic nicknames like the “Mozart of Madras” and “Isai Puyal” (“Music Storm.”) A two-time Academy Award winner, and six-time winner of the Indian National […]
Friday, October 10, 2025 @ 2:45 pm – 3:45 pm – This panel brings together leading educators, researchers and practitioners who are reimagining music education to serve students with exceptionalities. Through diverse approaches, from adaptive instruments to inclusive ensemble programs, panelists will share how their programs foster access, autonomy and engagement for students with exceptionalities. This session will explore how music can support communication, emotional expression, […]
Friday, October 10, 2025 @ 2:15 pm – 3:30 pm – We live in a world deeply focused on competition and competitiveness. Policy-makers want to have the most skilled workforce possible to enhance productivity. Parents seek to equip their kids with “marketable skills,” that will enable them to compete in a rapidly evolving technological environment. These pressures converge in public policy, leading to an education system […]
Friday, October 10, 2025 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – An illuminating keynote double-header exploring music’s scientifically validated power to heal, connect, and thrive. This session brings together two extraordinary voices offering complementary perspectives on music’s transformative effect on young lives. Dr. Battaglia draws from clinical psychiatry and evidence-based research, while Dr. Stewart approaches the world from pediatric neurology, exploring the role of music in […]
Friday, October 10, 2025 @ 11:30 am – 12:30 pm – The study of neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to change in response to stimuli, activity, experiences, and training – is one of the most exciting and promising areas of research in medical science. The infinite complexity of the brain, with its hundred trillion neural connections, remains a vast and largely uncharted landscape. We are still […]
Friday, October 10, 2025 @ 10:15 am – 11:45 am – Music students are often steered towards careers in performance, teaching, or academia – paths that reflect the structure of most post-secondary programs. But Canada’s music industry is much broader, powered by professionals working in artist management, music publishing, record labels, nonprofit leadership, community service and much more. These roles are not only vital to the […]
Friday, October 10, 2025 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm – Richard Dreyfuss shines in this inspiring 1995 hit drama about Glenn Holland, a gifted musician aspiring to compose a great symphony, who takes a job teaching high school music and in spite of himself, discovers his true vocation – changing the lives of students through music. Part It’s a Wonderful Life and part Goodbye Mr. […]
Friday, October 10, 2025 @ 9:30 am – 11:15 am – How do community-based music-making programs engage in a meaningful way with diverse cultures and their representatives, authentically reflecting Indigenous values and perspectives, and those of other formerly colonized nations? With sensitive planning and design, and inviting the leadership of Indigenous community leaders, Elders, song-keepers and others, community-based participatory music projects can become a gateway through […]
Thursday, October 9, 2025 @ 9:00 am – 10:00 am – Join us for this illuminating address by Dr. Shimi Kang MD, award-winning psychiatrist, bestselling author of The Dolphin Parent, acclaimed speaker; recognized expert on mental health, positive parenting, family dynamics, innovation, and resilience. An inspiring exploration of music’s profound scientifically validated power for healing, connection, and thriving, drawing on Dr. Kang’s clinical practice, research and […]
Thursday, October 9, 2025 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm – The only thing better than an evening with the dazzling Sunshine Orchestra is an evening with the Orchestra and its visionary founder: legendary composer and Academy Award winner A.R. Rahman, live on stage. The Sunshine Orchestra is comprised of exceptionally gifted young musicians from under resourced communities who receive world-class training at A.R. Rahman’s K.M. […]
Thursday, October 9, 2025 @ 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm – The Jerusalem Youth Chorus (JYC) is an Israeli-Palestinian music and dialogue project raising the voices of young leaders from East and West Jerusalem to the global stages of America’s Got Talent, TED, and beyond. Through the co-creation of music and the sharing of stories, JYC empowers young singers from East and West Jerusalem to speak […]
Thursday, October 9, 2025 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm – Starting a music program from the ground up can be a powerful way to foster community, engage youth and create a lasting cultural, educational and social impact. This roundtable brings together leaders and program founders from across North America to share their experiences launching music initiatives. Join this session for practical advice on everything from […]
Thursday, October 9, 2025 @ 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm – If community music projects are to have genuine value, we need to challenge outmoded and romanticized narratives, many of which are rooted in paternalistic assumptions from the past. Presenter Dr. Roger Mantie will pose provocative questions about how we understand the social impact of music and what underlying assumptions shape our interpretations of concepts like […]
Thursday, October 9, 2025 @ 12:45 pm – 1:45 pm – Will AI increase our musical enjoyment or dull our emotional response? Will it enhance our sonic creativity or lead us to become quick-but-facile “composers”? Tod Machover — who has been at the cutting edge of music and technology for over 40 years, and who leads the visionary MIT Media Lab — will provide context for […]
Thursday, October 9, 2025 @ 10:45 am – 12:00 pm – What does it take to build a transformative community music program, one that changes kids’ lives, opens new horizons for them, and contributes to healthier, more engaged communities? Each of our panelists has put in endless hours, faced innumerable challenges, made and corrected mistakes, and helped build a program that can serve as a role […]
Thursday, October 9, 2025 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm – Music of the Heart, starring Meryl Streep, is director Wes Craven’s 1999 film that tells the true story of Roberta Guaspari’s efforts that changed the lives of generations of Harlem schoolchildren through music. A single mother with little more than talent and the determination to make a difference, Guaspari has to overcome the skepticism of […]
Thursday, October 9, 2025 @ 9:00 pm – 10:30 pm – How can music programs in prisons and detention centres contribute to rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates into society? In places of incarceration where human dignity and sense of self is repressed, creative expression offers a fragile yet vital form of agency. Drawing on years of collaborative research within the SIMM research network and the lived […]
Wednesday, October 8, 2025 @ 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm – With this special Canadian premiere performance by the world-renowned Lara Somos Ensemble, we pay tribute to the 50th anniversary of El Sistema, the revolutionary music education program that has changed the lives of children and youth across the planet. This extraordinary vocal-instrumental ensemble was trained in El Sistema’s Special Education Program, which empowers young musicians […]
Wednesday, October 8, 2025 @ 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Created by the world-renowned Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez, Sinfonia por el Perú (“Symphony for Peru) is committed to catalyzing social transformation through group music teaching. Modeled after Venezuela’s El Sistema, the program provides musical training for young people as a means of building life skills, artistic ability and the values of good citizenship in […]
Wednesday, October 8, 2025 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm – With narration by Viggo Mortensen From bestselling Author Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) comes a magical, immersive concert experience that brings his whimsical children’s book Wild Symphony to life through vibrant visuals, celebrity narration, and an unforgettable live performance. The show will feature the 145 amazing musicians of the Sistema New Brunswick Children’s Orchestra […]
Wednesday, October 8, 2025 @ 3:45 pm – 5:00 pm – In recent decades, research into the effects of music on the brain, cognition, and neurological development – from early childhood through end of life – has surged. The massive body of work has evolved alongside science’s growing understanding of neuroplasticity (the brain’s remarkable ability to continuously reorganize itself by forming new neural connections in response […]
Wednesday, October 8, 2025 @ 3:45 pm – 5:00 pm – Music therapy harnesses the power of music in a therapeutic relationship guided by a trained professional to address a wide range of conditions in order to improve wellness and quality of life. Dating back to the early 20th century – and gaining formal recognition in U.S. universities by the 1940s – music therapy is now […]
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 @ 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm – It’s an evening of pure joy, and a story that has caught the world’s imagination. The Recycled Orchestra features gifted young musicians performing timeless music on instruments made entirely of recycled trash. Formed in the impoverished Paraguayan town of Cateura in 2007, the Recycled Orchestra is the fruit of a program designed to provide young […]
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm – Joshua Cohen is a professor of philosophy, and has taught at MIT, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, before joining the faculty of Apple University, established by Steve Jobs in 2008. Jobs’ goal was to infuse Apple’s employees with a more holistic and creative vision of the company’s mission and values. As part of […]
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 @ 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm – Music is a connecting thread that runs through cultures, extending from the very origins of identity to today’s contemporary expressions. The central role of music makes it an essential part of who people are and how they understand themselves, from cultural celebrations and sacred observances, the telling of folk stories and foundational myths, sustaining family […]
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 @ 12:45 pm – 1:45 pm – Dr. Ahmad Sarmast is the visionary Founder and Director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), established in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. ANIM was created as a modern, inclusive conservatory, welcoming children in need, and open to girls, who had long been banned from access to education. ANIM sought […]
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 @ 10:45 am – 11:45 am – In an era of constrained resources and an over-taxed health care system, we can and must find better and more cost-effective ways to enhance health and wellness across the population by addressing the social determinants of health: the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. Health is affected by numerous social […]
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 @ 10:30 am – 11:50 am – Inspired by the book, The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and The Redemptive Power of Music, this 2009 film tells the true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a Juilliard-trained former musical prodigy whose schizophrenia has landed him on the streets of Los Angeles. The Soloist stars Jamie Foxx as Nathaniel Ayers and Robert Downey […]
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 @ 9:00 am – 10:30 am – Across the planet, social initiatives rooted in the teaching of music have shown the powerful impact that this form of creative expression, collective engagement and personal development can have on the lives and futures of children and youth. The programs presented in this panel hail from diverse cultural and social environments, and address different needs […]
Monday, October 6, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 11:30 pm – Join us for a night of music and magic as we kick off a week of fantastic events for The Promise of Music at the Aga Khan Museum! The Promise of Music: The First World Congress on the Social Impact of Music opens with a joyous celebration featuring amazing artists from all over the world. […]
Monday, October 6, 2025 @ 4:45 pm – 5:45 pm – Drawing on nearly two decades of field research in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dr. Pairon will introduce the concept of ‘positive fatalism’ relating how the art of music-making may empower people to live with dignity amidst the unimaginable challenges, dangers, structural injustice, and hardships of daily life.
Monday, October 6, 2025 @ 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm – Frontier Economics is one of the world’s largest economics research firms with a staff of over 500. In 2024, Frontier Economics completed a major study for the UK government examining the impacts of arts, culture and heritage on the health and well-being of British people. Using a broad spectrum of evidence and new economic modelling, […]
Monday, October 6, 2025 @ 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm – Join this special appearance by author, narrator, director and filmmaker Jamie Bernstein. Her 2018 memoir, Famous Father Girl is about growing up with legendary composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, subject of the Academy Award nominated 2023 film, Maestro. She has written and narrated concerts about Mozart, Aaron Copland and Stravinsky, as well as “The Bernstein Beat,” a […]
