The International Symposium on Assessment in Music Education (ISAME) is a biennial global forum that convenes scholars, policymakers, and practitioners from across the world to examine the evolution of assessment theory, research, and practice. In this presentation we will share a brief history of the symposium, overview its contributions to the international music education profession, and share its path forward.The concept of a symposium dedicated to assessment originated in the late 1990s and early 2000s when international interest grew at ISME world and regional conferences as music educators worldwide faced shared challenges: balancing artistry and measurement, reconciling policy demands with pedagogical ideals, and defining reliable, fair, culturally responsive assessment practices. ISAME emerged to provide a forum to address these challenges. The ten symposia to date have produced nine collections of selected papers that have contributed a total of 281 papers to the international assessment dialogue, and the tenth volume is in press. The sixth symposium introduced the International Principles for Assessment in Music Education (Brophy & Fautley, 2017), which broadened at the WAAE’s 10th World Summit to become the Guidelines for the Assessment of Arts Learning (Brophy, et al., 2021) for music, visual art, dance, and drama/theatre.The symposia are designed to address the central assessment questions in music education of the time. While the first symposium focused on questions of accountability and the politicization of assessment, current topics range from rhizomatic approaches (Cormier, 2018, 2025; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Yoo, 2024), pluriversality and decolonization of curriculum and assessment (Hess, 2015; Sandoval, 2016; Väkevä, 2020; Wright & Leong, 2017), sustainability (Grant, 2024; UNESCO 2023a) and unprecedented advancements in artificial intelligence (UNESCO, 2023b). We will use interactive polling to gather recommendations for additional topics that are emerging in attendees’ nations.ISAME11 will be held in 2027 for the first time in Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya—to our knowledge the first global symposium focusing on music assessment to be held in the Global South. We will share the central questions of the 2027 symposium and answer participant enquiries. This session aligns with ISME’s theme Unity in Music Education: Building Bridges for All by affirming the unity among music educators worldwide to seek culturally relevant and responsive assessments of music learning and bridge the gaps between assessment strategies that are grounded in the world’s coexisting epistemologies.