CANCELED – ‘Social Impacts of Music-Making (SIMM)’ (lecture) @ Birzeit University

Dr Lukas Pairon (doctor in political and social sciences, University of Ghent, Belgium) knows Palestine very well. Since 2002 he has been coming regularly to the West Bank with musicians of the famous Belgian Ictus ensemble to teach at the Edward Said Music Conservatory, Al Kamandjati and music schools of Nablus and Bethlehem. And since 10 years he also spends 1 to (sometimes) 2 months per year working in Gaza for Music Fund (created in 2005) on music training projects in Gaza with and for UNRWA primary school teachers and with repair technicians of music instruments at the Edward Said Music School and the Al Sununu Music School. During his lecture of 19th March at Birzeit University he will focus on the role music can play in social work: how can the study and practice of music help young people to navigate towards more constructive positions in their society? From 2012 to 2016 Lukas Pairon studied himself 2 social music projects in Kinshasa (DR Congo) – one with so-called ‘witch’-children living in the streets of Kinshasa and one with former members of violent gangs. All the participants in his PhD-research claim that ‘music saved them’. Discovering that not much research was developed on the possible social impacts of music-making, Lukas Pairon founded together with practitioners and researchers the international research platform SIMM which since 2017 supports the development of research on the role music can play in social and community work. Routledge New York is later this year publishing Dr Pairon’s book ‘Music Saved Them, They Say’, which he wrote following his own research in Kinshasa (DR Congo).