Name
Many Streams, One River: Multimusical Educators in the K-12 Music Classroom
Date & Time
Monday, July 27, 2026, 4:35 PM - 5:05 PM
Description
Our contemporary landscape is marked by the blurring of boundaries between genres. Intercultural interaction (Slobin, 1993), intermusical exchanges (Monson, 1996), and omnivorous musical tastes (Peterson & Kern, 1996) now define the musical landscape. Against this backdrop, musical identities emerge as fluid and socially negotiated constructs. They are shaped by globalization, digital technologies, and transcultural experiences (MacDonald, Hargreaves, & Miell, 2002, 2017). Young people increasingly curate complex, hybrid selves by drawing from diverse musical streams, reflecting transcultural childhoods and global sonic ecumenism (Cremata & Powell, 2017; Kertz-Welzel, 2018). Music education stands to benefit from the lived expertise of multimusical educators—individuals who demonstrate capable performance and understanding across multiple musical cultures (Campbell, 2004)—particularly those actively teaching in K-12 settings. This narrative inquiry explored the life stories of four multimusical K-12 music educators through the following research questions: (a) How do participants describe their pathways to multimusicality? (b) In what ways do participants portray the dynamics between their musical worlds over time? and (c) How has participants’ diverse musicianship influenced their classroom pedagogy? Data was collected via background questionnaires, preliminary conversations, and four in-depth narrative interviews per participant. Analysis proceeded in two phases: individual-level interpretation produced four self-contained biographical chapters, followed by cross-narrative thematic analysis to discern recurring patterns and divergences. Findings indicated that pathways to multimusicality often began through family and community enculturation, with formal educational institutions and professional teachers assuming greater salience later in life. Third spaces—liminal, hybrid zones distinct from home (first space) and formal schooling (second space), marked by fluidity, sociocultural negotiation, and creative possibility (Bhabha, 1994; Gutiérrez, 2008)—proved pivotal during adolescence. In these spaces, participants engaged in relatively unfettered experimentation, deconstruction of established practices, recontextualization of knowledge, and artistic hybridity. Sustained curiosity propelled ongoing expansion of musical horizons. The concurrent and historical dialectic among participants’ musical worlds broadened their conceptual palette and cultivated holistic understandings of musical concepts, practices, and cultures. Pedagogically, this translated into classroom practices that emphasized powerful knowledge (Young & Muller, 2013), transcultural expression, lifelong musical engagement, and intermusical networks. These findings illuminate ways multimusical educators can enrich K-12 teaching and preservice preparation—through shared responsibility for artistic growth, affirmation of students’ vernacular worlds, and reimagining institutions as sites of musical discovery. They also suggest promising directions for future research on negotiated musical identities and multimusicality throughout the music education ecosystem.
Location Name
512H
Full Address
Palais des Congres - Montréal Convention Centre
1001, Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle
Montreal QC H2Z 1H2
Canada
Session Type
Paper Presentation
Presenting Author(s)
Anand Sukumaran