Music Leadership Training

Countries: Global
Runtime: 2014–on-going

Music leadership training shares expertise developed over 27 years of program implementation. In collaboration with partners, we develop training programs targeted to specific contexts, objectives and trainee groups globally.

Trainees have received training

In fifteen countries

Global Training programs

El Salvador

In 2017, we partnered with UNICEF and the Salvadoran Ministry of Education, and developed a long term, ambitious vision; to train school teachers across the country to use music to build peaceful coexistence, and develop the capacity for the program to sustain long after our intervention.

Within just three years, teams of Salvadoran trainers co-developed a curriculum adapted to their own context, built by and for the people who would use it. They rolled out the first national training cycle, with our support. Over 300 teachers were trained. Then 500 more. Impacting over 8,000 students.

Myanmar

In 2025, we worked with the Myanmar Jazz Club to train a team of fifteen music workshop leaders. We delivered a short series of online training sessions to the music leaders in Yangon, and three days of in-person sessions during their visit to Heidelburg, Germany.

The team of trained music leaders developed their own “Sounds of Hope“ project, delivering workshops to thousands of children and families who had been displaced in the earthquake-striken region of Mandalay.

Uganda

From 2016 to 2017 we ran a one year training course for 30 youth leaders from Alive Medical Services. The Rwanda Youth Music team led the training, supported by Musicians Without Borders’ international trainers.

Young community music leaders at Alive Medical Services continue their work and have provided support through music to over 1000 children and youth. Doctors and nurses have seen both the social and physical health of children and youth improve after participating in the music sessions.

Europe

Aligned with the aims of our Welcome Notes programs we train musicians, community workers, and activists in the use of music to strengthen the social inclusion of refugees in Europe through music.

Training courses

Interested in training with us? We collaborate with community-based organisations, venues, music organizations, and educational institutions to run training courses or sessions that build capacity in music leadership for social change and peacebuilding.

Past courses and sessions have run in partnership with:

Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK
Landesmuziekacademie LRW, Heek, Germany
Akoestikum, Ede, Netherlands
Academy for Impact through Music, UK
Conservatory of Music, Amsterdam, Netherlands
School of International Studies, Vermont, USA

Methodology

Our methodology is fully adaptive, and we develop our training interventions in collaboration with partners and musicians who understand well the needs and contexts of their communities. Anchor this co-creation, are our guiding principles:

Practical working principles that guide MWB’s music leadership methodology: Safety, inclusion, equality, creativity, and quality.
Principles of nonviolence: Music has the power to connect but in the wrong hands can be used to set one group against another.
Biological, social and psychological effect of music: how music can influence human behaviour on this level. Training will connect music to the nervous system and the ways it can counter feelings of dysregulation caused by trauma, disconnection and extreme experience.
Practical approaches to running various types of community music/outreach workshops with a focus on working with people who have experienced displacement. Participants will gain in-depth training on these principles and practical, guided experience in their application.