Center for World Music

OUR MISSION is to foster intercultural awareness and understanding through in-depth encounters with the world’s performing arts traditions.

OUR VISION is a world that celebrates cross-cultural understanding, respect, communication, and healing through the performing arts traditions of cultures around the globe.

Center for World Music Programs

The Center for World Music's core initiatives are expressed through our three primary programs: World Music in the Schools, Concerts and Community Workshops, and Access to the Arts for Seniors. Through these programs, we focus on engaging diverse and underserved students, teachers, and audiences.

IN-SCHOOLS PROGRAM

World Music in the Schools features more than 25 highly qualified teaching artists and 18 ensembles-in-residence, representing 20 music and dance traditions worldwide. Established in 1999, World Music in the Schools has grown to become our most extensive program. It offers 8- to 35-week artist residencies, workshops, and school-wide assemblies, reaching over 10,000 students each year.

WORLD MUSIC CONCERTS, COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS, AND PERFORMANCES

The CWM presents an annual series of concerts carefully curated to introduce audiences to underrepresented musical traditions. These concerts present distinguished California, national, and international artists performing traditional world music and dance. Additionally, in partnership with San Diego institutions and cultural communities, the CWM offers workshops and performances, reaching over 2,000 children and adults annually.

ACCESS TO THE ARTS FOR SENIORS

Access to the Arts for Seniors creates enriching experiences for seniors living in affordable housing communities. Residents in these settings have limited access to cultural enrichment due to socio-economic and physical limitations. This program aims to meet their needs by bringing the world's music and dance to where they live, presenting more than 30 events per year in 9 senior communities, reaching over 1,500 seniors.

Why Our Work Matters

The Center for World Music values, highlights, and supports the voices and knowledge of master artists from diverse traditions worldwide. Our primary programs serve underrepresented communities in the San Diego area, where the CWM is actively engaged in outreach to diverse artists, students, and audiences. Fostering intercultural awareness and understanding through sharing and teaching the world's performing arts traditions has been quintessential to our mission for nearly six decades. Over the years, the CWM has developed an extraordinary legacy of providing opportunities for meaningful engagement with the vast range of performing arts traditions found across the globe. It is our mission to continue to include communities of color and historically marginalized groups fully and to embrace racial and ethnic diversity in everything we do.

Fostering knowledge and appreciation of the rich diversity of the world's music and dance traditions is vital to pursuing an inclusive and just society. We have witnessed the transformative power of world music and dance to inspire dialog, intercultural understanding, and social healing. As the saying goes, "It's hard to hate people when you're dancing to their music."

You Can Help! 

Help us Expand Free Education Programs to Students in Need - $16,000 Goal

Over the last decade, funding for arts education in the schools has been drastically cut. With the help of parent-teacher organizations or foundations, many schools successfully augment school curricula with arts programming. However, schools serving communities with high levels of poverty tend not to have the capacity to fundraise.

With your help, we will expand free programming to three Title I schools in the 2022–23 school year. For maximum impact, we will offer weekly hands-on artist residencies at each school for a full term. One artist residency costs an estimated $5,300.

Help Us Amplify Voices of Refugee, Asylee, and Migrant Communities - $12,000 Goal

San Diego is a hub for refugee resettlement in the US. Federal partnerships with local humanitarian organizations prioritize basic needs such as housing, health, and jobs. Yet, even with this support, there are aspects of these families' transitions that are often overlooked: a sense of community, a feeling of belonging, and a need to be heard.

Music on the Move is a year-long initiative that explores the role of music, dance, and related arts in refugee, asylee, and migrant communities now calling San Diego home. We will work with refugees, asylees, and migrant artists, performing groups, and community members to produce four free public presentations for World Refugee Day and World Music Day. We seek $12,000 in matching funds to help compensate performers, interpreters, and videographers and buy supplies to make the program successful.