ResearchWorks: Un Canto por la Vida, embracing alterity in social action through music

The doctoral research Implications of music education on social and human development: a Colombian case study seeks to understand how and to what extent the institutional, community, pedagogical and artistic practices of music schools at the municipal level in Colombia, can have a role in social action for music. The study focuses on the case of Canto por la Vida, a foundation that through music making and training in traditional Colombian musica, seeks to create educational and cultural transformations in the municipality of Ginebra, Valle del Cauca.

The study, based on ethnography, delves into the tensions and conflicts that emerge in a same project that seeks: 1) to delve into a musical tradition; 2) to embrace diversity and aesthetic and pedagogical alternativity; and 3) generate sustainability amid the weakness of the cultural field. The study shows that the kaleidoscopic observation of these phenomena will allow better understanding of the factors that affect the processes of political action, human relations, and the possibility of building a common project from the difference, as an asset and axis of inflection and balance in polarized and changing societies.

Speaker

Natalia Juliana Puerta (Guildhall School of Music & Drama) has an MA in music education from the Institute of Education of the University College London IOE-UCL (distinction) and BA in musical arts from the District University of Bogotá (distinction).

Natalia has great experience as an academic and pedagogical advisor of musical educational programs in Colombia. She worked as coordinator of the training component of the National Music Plan for Living Together PNMC of the Colombian Ministry of Culture, supporting the implementation of music education policies and strengthening non formal music schools in popular and traditional music, choirs, symphonic bands and orchestras in the country. She has been pedagogical advisor to the Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín and has worked with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá OFB and the Orquesta Filarmónica Joven de Colombia, training musicians on issues of social impact and music pedagogy. Natalia has been professor at the National Pedagogical University of Colombia and the Pontifical Javeriana University of Bogotá, among other institutions of Colombia.

Natalia is currently the coordinator of music pedagogy at the Universidad del Valle and doctoral researcher under the SIMM-Guildhall scholarship, supervised by professors John Sloboda and Geoff Baker. Natalia's research interest focuses on music education, public policy and the social impact of music making field. She is a founding member of Sonido Colectivo centered on studying Latino American community musical practices and their role on the social fabric.

Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks is a programme of events centred around the School’s research activity, bringing together staff, students and guests of international standing. We run regular events throughout the term intended to share the innovative research findings of the School and its guests with students, staff and the public.