Dear colleagues, students, and friends,
Join us for the 2026 GHI 9th Forum! This session introduces the GHI Pillar Music Across Borders, and its two pilot projects: A project titled Reviving Music, Reframing Heritage and a project on developing a multicultural string method and publication inspired by the Suzuki approach.
9th GHI Forum
• Title: From Music Revivals to Global Pedagogies
• Date: April 10, 2026, 10:00–11:30 AM EST
• Where: Online (Zoom Registration Link: [zoom link])
• Speakers: Makoto Harris Takao, David R.M. Irving, Mike Block
【Abstract】
How have the world’s musical traditions traveled, transformed, and at times been suppressed through histories of colonialism, diaspora, and cross-cultural encounter? And how do these histories position us to rethink how we study, perform, and experience music today? This forum introduces the work of GHI’s newly-established pillar, Music Across Borders, which brings together performers with scholars in the humanities and the natural and social sciences to explore how musics move across borders, transforming alongside the people who make, hear, and remember them. The pillar asks how music can serve as a resource for connection, healing, and human flourishing, as well as a means of reckoning with challenging histories.
The forum will discuss vignettes from our research and spotlight two pilot projects. The first, Reviving Music, Reframing Heritage (David R. M. Irving, ICREA & IMF, CSIC, and Makoto Harris Takao, MIT), investigates music revivals in a global context from the 1880s to World War II, examining how silenced, interrupted, or forgotten traditions have been reanimated—and to what political, cultural, and utopian ends. The second, led by cellist and educator Mike Block, develops a multicultural string method and publication inspired by the Suzuki approach, reimagining instrumental pedagogy through the diversity of our world’s musical traditions rather than through the canon of Western classical music. Block, a Grammy® Award–winning musician, Silk Road Ensemble member, and artist-in-residence at MIT’s GHI, will give a live performance as part of his presentation.
Looking forward to seeing you at our events!
The MIT Global Humanities Team
MIT Global Humanities is co-funded by The MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC)
