Reflec­tions from the AEC Plat­form in Hel­sin­ki 2026

18.3.2026 0 Like 0 kommenttia

Puro Paju is a graduate of the Global Music programme at the Sibelius Academy and currently works there as a teacher.

In February 2026, the AEC Pop & Jazz Platform was organised in Finland for the first time. Hosted by Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, the gathering was titled ’Power of Music: self‑expression, community engagement and wellbeing in music’. These themes formed the read thread running through the interactive sessions, keynote speeches, workshops, performances, and peer‑learning formats during the four conference days.

Even though there is the ”pop&jazz” in the title, the platform nowadays increasingly seeks to include traditional/folk/global music programs also in their community.

I attended the AEC platform for the first time, as a representative of the Global music program at Sibelius Academy. I also got an opportunity to give an open floor presentation at the event about the work of our program. I aimed to shed light on how the program works in general, who can study there and what are the main values, ways of working and goals of the study line.

Global music at Sibelius Academy is a relatively young, innovative and unique programme that hosts both students and staff from a wide range of cultural and musical backgrounds. Main instruments range from traditional folk instruments of different cultures to western band and orchestra instruments. Musical backgrounds also range from indigenous and traditional music cultures to pop/jazz/classical music etc. The transcultural meeting points and collaborations within that diverse community lay down the platform for the programme´s work. Each student´s pathway and outcome is unique, yet formed in connection with others, learning from each other and the process, as well as the educators, of course.

Finding and strengthening one´s artistic voice and identity, composing and performing, researching and sharing one´s musicianship (pedagogy, community engagement, artistic citizenship and activism) are some of of the programme´s core intentions and goals. Through music making, the Global Music Programme plays an active role in fostering respect, understanding, dialogue and collaboration amongst people and cultures in today’s world as well as aims to find ways to decolonise music education and give space for a wider understanding of equity among ways of musical expression.

These themes seemed to sit very well with the intentions and headlines chosen for this year´s platform and there was a nice amount of interest towards our work from colleagues and students around Europe. Also in conversations about for example community engagement work there was a lot of attention towards our solutions and projects, which was very encouraging. It felt meaningful to reflect on our work in a wider European educational context and to meet personally some like minded practitioners. In challenging times it feels important to make connections and stand together, developing our programs.

Students had a delightfully significant role at the event in general, there was clearly a will to lift up their role in developing education in collaboration with teachers and other staff. They engaged in conversations, performed and posed good questions. I had invited a global student, Humphrey Mbaruku (Tanzania) to join me and we started off the  presentation by playing together one of his compositions. Also our professor Nathan Thomson joined the event.

All in all the AEC Pop & Jazz Platform 2026 brought a record-breaking 200 educators, students, musicians, and leaders to Helsinki to exchange ideas, practises and artistic inspiration.