As a society founded upon the principles of cross-disciplinary collaboration, CMS is ideally positioned to champion the world-changing power of building bridges, fostering connections, holding space for listening and curiosity, and collaboratively moving music boldly forward.
Today, we are experiencing daunting challenges — budgetary pressures, the enrollment cliff, a transactional world that questions the value of music and the arts. At times like this, a common tendency is to withdraw, hunker down, and isolate, when the path forward is to open up, welcome in, and mix it up.
CMS can model and lead these efforts by promoting collaboration at every level and providing the knowledge and tools to make it happen. We can foster collaborations between:
- students, faculty and staff
- music departments
- music disciplines
- music and university departments
- music schools
- music and arts-focused societies
- music schools and their communities
- music schools and arts organizations
- music schools and the music industry
- music schools and non-music focused businesses
- music and technology
- music and science
- music and wellness
- music and. . .
In short, we have the opportunity to build creative, collaborative, multi-dimensional, world-changing networks between music and anything we can possibly imagine. We have the opportunity to let the world see, understand, and experience the indispensable power of music, so the intrinsic worth of what we bring to the world becomes self-evident.
This Common Topic is a reminder to all of us, to do just that.
