Music & Peacebuilding

After a much-needed break, we are excited to announce the launch of Season 2! In season 2 we explore new questions about cultures of transformative healing with ethnomusicologists, musicians, educators, and peacebuilders. Join us as we explore episodes on Balinese Gamelan, Compassionate Music Teaching, Building Bridges of Storytelling, and much more!

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.

This final episode of season 1 explores ritual, symbol, and peace building with Dr. Lisa Shirch. Dr. Shirch is senior research fellow for the Toda Peace Institute, Senior Fellow with the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and Visiting Scholar at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. We explore the “rationality” of ritual, the power of symbol and transformative space, and the dark side of ritual when it is used for xenophobia and hate.

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.

Hong Le is a National Board Certified elementary music specialist who teaches workshops in World Music Drumming Curriculum. We sat down to talk about her belief in community, universal talent, and the ability of music teachers to empower student voices. Weaving in her own story as the child of Vietnamese refugees, Hong Le also speaks to the centrality of hospitality, community, and generosity in building compassionate lives.

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.

The second in our Anabaptist theology series features an interview with Dr. Drew Hart of Messiah College on his book “Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism.” Our conversation looks at issues of embodied solidarity, ground-up thinking and organizing, systemic racism, reconciliation, dignity, and hope.

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.

Embracing a diversity of voices and musicians, this podcast explores the beautiful interwoven thoughts and expressions of what it means to live the Anabaptist walk of peace, community, witness, and humility. Featuring Rev. Pam Reist, Dr. Drew Hart, Dr. Jeff Bach, and Dr. Don Kraybill, the Oasis Chorale, the Nigerian Women’s Choir, and Frances Miller and Daryl Snider of Sopa Sol, we explore the intersections of history and the lived, and embodied walk of faith and love.

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.

This podcast explores the artistry of Sreyashi Dey's interpretations of the Mahabharata through the Odissi style of Classical Indian Dance. Dey sought to restory the life of Hidimba, a minor female character in the Mahabharata who is marginalized within structures of ethnic and class power. Alongside this artistic narrative, we explore Vrinda Dalmiya's exploration of feminist care ethics and the storied contrast between masculine order and principle against the vulnerable, embodied, and contextually situated ethic of care. Our exploration of care and restorying deepens our notions of care and narrative within peace work.

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.

Together with Dr. Jeff Long, Elizabethtown College scholar on Indic religions and philosophies, we launch the first of a two-part series exploring Yogic values and Classical Indian Dance. Our discussion centers on Dr. Long's United Nations speeches regarding peace, nonviolence, ahimsa, and Hindu and Yogic values. Exploring Ahimsa, we examine the interconnectedness of care for one another and the centrality of sound and story in Hindu traditions.

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.

Our first in this series examined the music of Oliver Mtukudzi. In this episode, we extend this conversation, interviewing Vurayai Pugeni about his work as a peacebuilder with Grow Hope Globally, the Mennonite Central Committee, and Score Against Poverty. We explore the meaning of Tuku music in Pugeni's life and work. And then we turn to a fascinating story of the "Men Can Cook" cooking competition - An initiative that found an innovative and creative challenge to patriarchal structures and resulting food insecurities for families, women, and children.

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.

Bridget Moix is an advocate, educator, activist, and leader of the US Office of Peace Direct. She believes in the power of local people to build lasting peace. In this conversation we encounter themes within her book, Choosing Peace: Agency and Action in the Midst of War, to explore the notion of peace agency and how our best work is bounded in relationship. Weaving together the teachings of James Waller and Elise Boulding, we explore our innate capacity for peace and relationship, and the importance of families, friendships, and communities in rooting our advocacy and care to place. The episode concludes with a joyful exploration of hope, choice, and imagination led by the laughter and music of the Bluegrass Ambassadors and members of a Ugandan community.

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.

In this podcast we explore the beautiful, creative, and challenging work of Dan Shevock's Eco-literate music pedagogy. His notions of the local and rootedness challenge teachers to live into a sense of being in relationship to our locality. A profound scholar and poet, Shevock weaves together strands of philosophy, theology, poetry, music, and science to imagine the radical interconnectedness of an ecology of being. Our discussion speaks to meditative presence, being rather than having, and the balance of conservation and liberation. Interwoven with our conversations are Dan Shevock's poems, whale songs, soundscapes of the National Park Service, and the soundscapes preserved and musicked by preeminent acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. May we return our ears to the soundscape of our presence, finding the connection that repairs our ecosystem of relationship.

The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.