International Community Engagement Program (ICEP)
MUSIC SHARING’s International Community Engagement Program is a cultural exchange, outreach, and training program. It brings musical presentations to a different Asian country each year, particularly in underserved regions, followed by similar programming in Japan, several months later, through the Visiting Program’s Western Classical Music Division. The MUSIC SHARING founder and violinist Midori forms a string quartet with three other musicians, and together with them, she spends close to two weeks within the selected country, and later two weeks in Japan, visiting and performing in schools, hospitals, refugee camps, residential programs, and other educational and social organizations serving people in challenging circumstances.
ICEP’s first presentations outside of Japan took place in 2006, in Vietnam. Since then, MUSIC SHARING has sent Midori and the selected young musicians to Cambodia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Laos, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, India, and Vietnam, with the 2019 program taking place in Cambodia again. MUSIC SHARING collaborates with various government entities, non-governmental organizations, and other charitable groups, including various foreign ministries and the United Nations.
The goal of ICEP is to help connect young people with the wider world through music. Supporting the philosophy that music nurtures, nourishes, heals, and inspires the mind, the organization allows children of different backgrounds and circumstances the opportunity to personally experience music and be touched by its beauty, excitement and energy. Active audience participation is always encouraged. Children often plan and execute a cultural performance or presentation of their own, as a token of appreciation for their MUSIC SHARING visitors.
The young musicians in the quartet with Midori are selected through a competitive auditioning process. They are assessed on the basis of their artistic achievements and for their community-engagement interest and abilities. With performances in an Asian country and in Japan, in differing venues and circumstances, the musicians have an opportunity to hone their presentation skills under varied conditions, while being exposed to the diverse backgrounds, lifestyles, and social conditions of the people with whom they interact.
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