MEMECO x APME International Conference 2026

Using seventeenth- to nineteenth-century solfeggio sources, this session explores how historical materials can inform today’s music teaching. Participants will discover contrapuntal and spoken solfeggio traditions and discuss practical strategies, opportunities, and challenges in adapting these sources for lower secondary school classrooms and for developing students’ musical literacy and creativity.

Session should be about music education in collectivity and how these music practices are grounded to communities and fragile territories. In this case, music is seen not only as an art, but also as a tool for social improvement and empoverment.

A discussion centred around the results of two recent surveys conducted to investigate what type of training may still be needed for UK based Popular Music (PM) singing teachers, and to assess their thoughts on and experiences of teaching PM singing styles at school and Higher Education (HE) levels.

This session explores how political conflict has shaped Lebanon’s popular music industry and everyday listening practices. Highlighting music as a resource for memory, resilience, and community, it offers educators practical strategies for culturally responsive teaching, critical listening, and approaches that connect music learning to lived social and cultural experiences.

In this session, we will present the results of a joint educational and research project involving children from three primary schools with a high density of migrants. We will show how inclusive and participatory musical activities led to the development of social skills, such as group solidarity, self-expression and autonomy.In this session, we will present the results of a joint educational and research project involving children from three primary schools with a high density of migrants. We will show how inclusive and participatory musical activities led to the development of social skills, such as group solidarity, self-expression and autonomy.

The journey of Antonio Boezio and Bobo Studios describes the transformation of a small recording studio in Southern Italy into an international music university campus, combining British education, artistic production, entrepreneurship and territorial development, showing how music can generate cultural, professional and social growth within peripheral contexts.

In many cases, the inclusion of popular music course offerings does not necessarily represent a move towards equitable access to music education. This presentation explores this phenomenon with particular attention to the delineation and marginalization of students according to class and ability. In many cases, the inclusion of popular music course offerings does not necessarily represent a move towards equitable access to music education. This presentation explores this phenomenon with particular attention to the delineation and marginalization of students according to class and ability as well as race and gender. 

Today’s songwriters must navigate not only the musical aspect of the craft, but also branding, publishing, intellectual property, and digital distribution. For educators, bridging these domains presents both a challenge and an opportunity: how can we teach students to sustain creative lives in an ever-evolving industry without sacrificing artistry?

This session examines “The Business of Songwriting,” a pedagogical model that integrates career development and industry knowledge directly into creative coursework. Drawing from experience teaching this course at Berklee, this session outlines a holistic approach to helping students understand their songs as both art and assets. It will explore strategies for encouraging entrepreneurial thinking that supports long-term creative practice.

Participants will receive adaptable lesson structures, and reflection frameworks that can be implemented across educational settings. Discussion will include how to foster authentic artistic identity within commercial contexts, how to teach collaboration as a professional skill, and how to cultivate financial and creative sustainability.

By reimagining songwriting education through an integrated creative-business lens, educators can empower emerging writers to build resilient, self-sustaining careers grounded not only in musical excellence but in an understanding of how songs live, move, and earn in the world.

Hidden meanings are ubiquitous in popular styles, embedded in the musical DNA of American music. This presentation will survey types of meaning created through symbols, double entendre, and coded messages contained within popular styles, and how their methods have been used to engage audiences over time.

Music pedagogy attributed educational value to widely shared musical practices. Popular music, often learned within informal educational context, played an important role in early musical development. However, popular music was frequently neglected and marginalised in educational discourse. The paper aims to shed light on this phenomenon through an interdisciplinary approach at the intersection of history and music education in the Italian context, with particular focus on the pedagogical framework of the twentieth century. 

This presentation introduces HI–AI–MI, a human-centered framework for ethical AI integration in popular music education. Grounded in qualitative research, the model positions AI as a creative partner guided by human judgment in service of musical identity, agency, and culturally situated popular music practice.

The contribution offers a reflection on the educational concept in Sardinian culture, expressed in the traditional music heritage of songs and nursery rhymes dedicated to children. 
This repertoire is analyzed to define musical structures and educative function, and an operative didactic proposal is articulated, in acculturation and identity recovery perspective 

This presentation explores how embedding meaningful choice into project briefs can strengthen student agency and foreground the creative process in popular music education. Through practical examples, the session shows how flexible assessment design supports authentic music-making, reflective practice, and deeper student ownership of learning. 

This paper frames the audiovisual essay as an educational and epistemic resource within Musical Collaborative Action Research. Through three case studies (musical heritage recovery, historiographical analysis, and video art) it demonstrates how videographic editing catalyzes critical thinking, validates embodied musical and sonic knowledge, and ensures the effective documentation and dissemination of the musical artistic process. // Il presente studio inquadra l'Audiovisual Essay come risorsa educativa ed epistemica nella Ricerca-Azione Collaborativa musicale. Attraverso tre casi studio (recupero patrimoniale, analisi storiografica e videoarte), dimostra come il montaggio videografico catalizzi il pensiero critico, validi la conoscenza musicale incarnata e garantisca l'efficace documentazione e diffusione del processo artistico.