IntroductionMusic is an organ of culture, music education is an education for culture. Culture is a non-static environment for growth and relevance, where world views, belief systems, contexts, content and practices are negotiated by those who operate in the environment. It is a construct intermingling relationships and resultant actions and the thoughts that birth the relationships and actions.In this context, music education is a tool of development, emancipation and empowerment. The panel presents concepts from Egypt, Ghana, and Kenya in teacher education and higher music education environments.Presentations:1. Ungrading Preservice Music Teacher Education for Engaged Learning, a qualitative exploratory single-embedded case study explores the impact of ungrading on integrating course themes into the lesson planning process for preservice music education students. A series of narratives shows how preservice teachers experience the ungrading project and their stories of growth in pedagogy for engaged learning.2. A Lifelong Approach to music education from Primary to Higher Learning. Using insights from Luo Benga in Nairobi the presentation explores cultural considerations necessary for developing a holistic and contextually relevant music education framework that integrates African musical traditions from the earliest stages of learning through to advanced scholarly engagement.3. Teaching the Interior Piano: Mattar’s Op. 10, No. 5 as a Pedagogical Tool from the New African Music Project Series presents the outcome of using a pedagogical tool using miniatures that associate sound with a distinct Egyptian imagery or atmosphere, offering students a familiar conceptual reference to help navigate the unfamiliar sonic terrain. This approach aims to provide a culturally grounded entry point into interior piano performance.4. Cultural Considerations in aural musicianship teaching and learning in institutions ofhigher education in Kenya argues for the importance of integrating indigenous music resources into aural musicianship training to enrich learners’ musical experiences and cultivate an appreciation for a rich tapestry of cultures. It advocates for teacher professional development and a paradigm shift in the pedagogical practices of music educators at higher institutions of learning and a genuine effort to incorporate indigenous music resources into the aural skills curriculum5. Re-imagining music in the secondary teacher education classroom interrogates three conceptual constructs as a basis for reconceptualizing what music is in secondary teacher education for a Competency Based Education (CBE) curriculum: Context-Concept-Process (CCP) trialogue, Communal-participatory (CP) principle and a teacher education model that corresponds to the interaction between CCP trialogue and CP principle.