A Music and Lifelong Learning Symposium was held April 14-16, 2005, on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. The Symposium was sponsored by the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies, in collaboration with the MENC Adult and Community Music Education Special Research Interest Group (ACME SRIG), with additional grant funding the Evjue Foundation. The goal of the Symposium was to promote the dissemination of research which investigates experiences affecting lifelong musical acquisition, development, and participation, particularly into the adult years. Researchers, educators, practitioners, community music leaders, and amateur and professional musicians came together to share research and ideas about the role and importance of music across the lifespan.

An international call for papers was released through the ACME SRIG membership list and members of ISME; a panel of ACME SRIG members subsequently reviewed the submissions and selected the papers for presentation. During the three-day event there were 22 plenary research presentations and research-based interactive sessions with presenters from Ghana, Kenya, Finland, Canada, The Netherlands, and the United States. The director of the Symposium was Dr. Chelcy Bowles (University of Wisconsin-Madison), current Chair-elect of the ACME SRIG, and the keynote speaker was Dr. David E. Myers, Professor of Music Education, Associate Director of the School of Music, and Founding Director of the Center for Educational Partnerships in Music at Georgia State University. (Dr. Myers also co-founded the ACME SRIG, and is currently Southern Division Representative.) ACME SRIG officers presided at each session throughout the three days.

ACME SRIG Chair Dr. Jeffrey Bush (Arizona State University) conducted a SRIG meeting on Saturday, April 16, at 9:00 am. Meeting notes will be provided in the next ACME SRIG Newsletter (scheduled for November, 2005).

The Symposium Proceedings will be published by the International Journal of Community Music, Vol. 2, No. 2, guest edited by Symposium director Dr. Chelcy Bowles and Dr. Debbie Rohwer (University of North Texas), Southwestern Division. Currently the Symposium program can be found at http://www.dcs.wisc.edu/lsa/music/symposium.htm.

Plans were initiated during the event for another MLL Symposium in collaboration with the ACME SRIG to be held at Ithaca College in Spring, 2007.

Conference Abstracts are available (Adobe pdf)