Much as music educators have aspirations to give students meaningful aesthetic and related learning experiences through music listening, performing and creating, they have also many non-musical considerations - and at times, constraints - to grapple with. Local music syllabuses and curricula are typically shaped by higher authorities at the local, regional and national levels to varying extent. Policy makers may have paid heed to global imperatives or trends too. Some would additionally be cognizant of their past histories and traditions as they plot the way forward.In an age of increasing cultural diversity and complexity, and in the wake of UNESCO’s 2003 call to safeguard our intangible heritage, and to harness this “living heritage” - “open” and “evolving” (UNESCO, 2013) - to advance UNESCO’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (UNESCO, 2018), the idea of introducing music-cultural pasts to students across all age ranges raises important curricular questions for classroom music teachers:i. Which musical past(s)? Whose musical past(s)?ii. Who decides?iii. What is the rationale for inclusion in the curriculum?iv. How should these pasts be taught?Admittedly, speaking of the pasts, there can sometimes be tension between knowing and preserving the pasts on the one hand and approaching and transforming heritage as a “living tradition.” The latter can include creating new traditions in multi-cultural contexts or for the modern day. The desire for sustainability here therefore also raises questions about educators’ views towards traditions.This panel brings together music educators from across the globe to reflect on the first three questions above from their respective national perspective. Reference to relevant frameworks - for example, culturally responsive teaching (Gay, 2000; Abril, 2013; Lind & McKoy, 2016), culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris, 2012), and transformative politics of music education (Laes, Biesta, & Westerlund [Eds.], 2025) - will be made where appropriate. The scenarios from each of the countries presented can potentially provoke deep reflections and generate rich conversations:i. In post-independent Singapore, music education serves an increasingly diverse multi-racial populace. The government, through its Ministry of Education, has an active hand in determining the school music curriculum. Interestingly, as it seeks to develop the musical voices of the next generation and of the young nation-state, it not only actively preserves but also “creates” local heritage.ii. The modern history of Taiwan has been defined by a series of political power shifts: the Japanese colonization since the late 19th century, the sovereignty of the Chinese National Party after WWII, the lifting of martial law in the 1980s, and the pursuit of democracy at the turn of the 21st century. A very complex construction of the Taiwanese identity thus emerges as various political ideologies come into play with the educational system, including the development of school music curriculum, to “best” benefit the people in the society.iii. India is a country marked by immense cultural, linguistic and musical diversity. However, the central or federal school syllabus privileges the two major Indian classical music traditions over other musical forms, if at all. While these hold great value, they do not represent the cultural pasts of the thousands of ethnic communities within the country.iv. Kenya has about 42 cultural groupings, each with a rich cultural heritage. Unfortunately, these are not effectively nor meaningfully taught to students in schools despite the Ministry of Education’s efforts to organize music festivals to promote these traditions. The legacy of 19th century Christian missionaries meant adopting western ways and disparaging indigenous cultural practices (Gachathi Report, 1976). Students who were exposed to western music were then uncomfortable with their own indigenous music (Akuno, 2005). The mission schools themselves lacked teaching materials on African music. Today, in post-colonial Kenya, teachers continue to teach the western way that they were taught.