Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the AEC Newsletter for the summer.
As the academic year draws to a close, we want to thank each of you for the energy and collaboration you have brought to our community over the past months.
We are delighted to share that the AEC Annual Report 2025 has now been published. It offers a wonderful overview of a year of remarkable activity across our network, from our four major events to strengthened advocacy and continued progress on inclusion, sustainability, and digital transformation. We warmly encourage you to explore it.
It is also a great pleasure to welcome the new members who have joined the AEC family in recent months. Their diverse perspectives enrich our network, and we hope many of you will meet them at our upcoming events.
Looking ahead, registrations are now open for the IRC Meeting in Trento, taking place from 2 to 5 September. This gathering of International Relations Coordinators promises rich exchanges on internationalisation and mobility, and we hope to see many of you there.
Finally, we wish you all a restful and inspiring summer. May these weeks bring you time to recharge, to enjoy music, and to reconnect with family and friends. We look forward to seeing you again in the autumn with renewed energy.
Warm summer wishes,
The AEC Office Team
AEC continues to advocate for a stronger EU budget for culture as negotiations on the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework enter a decisive phase. At the same time, the new Joint Declaration “Europe for Culture – Culture for Europe” confirms culture’s central role in democracy, education, social cohesion and Europe’s future.
The AEC Annual Meeting for International Relations Coordinators returns this September in Trento, Italy. Under the theme "Common Ground – Diverse Pathways", the 4-day event brings together IRC professionals from across the AEC network to share expertise, build new partnerships, and explore the evolving landscape of internationalisation in higher music education.
AEC welcomed six new members in the first months of 2026, further enriching the network with diverse experiences and perspectives from Europe and beyond. Discover who they are and learn more about the AEC community.
AEC deepens European ties this June, from music education advocacy in Prague and industry dialogue in Amsterdam, to wellbeing research at the European Forum on Music in Timișoara and EU funding talks in Brussels.
AEC launches a new Digital Transformation Stakeholder Network, inviting staff, students and specialists across Higher Music Education to exchange ideas, share good practice and help shape the sector's digital future. Sign up by 30 August.
From 21–25 June 2026, the d@rts consortium gathered in Oulu, Finland (this year's European Capital of Culture) for a week of collaborative work, critical reflection, and public engagement, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and artists from across Europe and beyond.
The MusiQuE Peer Reviewers Training Workshop will take place online on 13 October and in person on 4 and 5 November 2026 at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.
The HarMA HUB partner institutions and the music theory community marked the end of the HarMA HUB project. However, some of its most successful activities will continue taking place.
Join the d@rts International Conference & Artistic Reunion, hosted by the Gustav Mahler Private University of Music in Klagenfurt, Austria from 15-17 October.
Join the BIP International Conference on Live Coding (ICLC) at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, Belgium from 9-13 March 2027.
AEC Annual Report 2025
What does AEC actually do in a year? Quite a lot, as it turns out.
The newly published AEC Annual Report 2025 offers a quick journey through a network of more than 300 higher music education institutions in 57 countries. In just four major events - from Pamplona to Tallinn, Budapest and Salzburg - AEC welcomed more than 1,000 participants, with around 235 speakers contributing to over 115 sessions.
Behind these numbers is the real story of AEC: people from different countries, institutions and musical traditions coming together to exchange ideas, challenge each other, share concerns and imagine possible futures for higher music education. Across conferences, working groups, projects, advocacy meetings and informal conversations, the report shows a network built on transnational collaboration - and on the simple but powerful belief that music education matters.
The report also captures a year of concrete development: the launch of a new Creative Europe Network project, stronger advocacy in Brussels and beyond, the adoption of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Policy, new steps towards greener travel and sustainability, and continued work on artistic research, digital transformation, student engagement and international cooperation.
We hope the report offers both insight and inspiration and wish you happy reading.
AEC Events
AEC International Relations Coordinators Meeting
d@rts International Conference
and Artistic Reunion
4-7 November, 2026
Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg
AEC Annual Congress & General Assembly
AEC Vacancy Platform
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
