From 30 May to 5 June 2025, I—along with ten mdw students of instrumental and vocal education and of music education—attended the Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) Cultural and Social Well-Being – Identity and Participation at Savonia University of Applied Sciences in Kuopio, in northeastern Finland.

There, we met Finnish, Lithuanian, and German students from these curricula and from the area of social work who were also participating in the programme. Prior to our six-day meeting, all students were required to complete several online modules. Following that, they had up to eight weeks to complete their final presentations.

The intense week was filled with various participatory formats, such as the Welcome Evening at a lodge at the edge of the city, with a lake for swimming, where the students also had their accommodations. The student groups from each country had prepared a humorous performance from their homeland, and in addition to their presentation, everyone brought along music and dance. This was followed by a—clothed—Sauna Experience. The following day, a workshop was held on collaborating to create a large Sound Machine. Kit Griffiths was very authentic with his workshop “Gender and Joy and You”. The next workshop focused on the distinction of language, dealing with class differences in Shakespeare’s texts in an interactive manner and illustrating this with physical movements. The workshop on tango as a social phenomenon was very well received, as was the workshop in the city museum on the subject of art without borders, including teamwork there on the topic of safe spaces.

We have now returned, and the students are working on their portfolios in which they will explore the following questions:

How do musical and social environments shape an individual’s identity?

What role do music and language play in the construction of identity?

How do identities influence interpersonal interactions?

How do various aspects of personal identity develop over the course of one’s life? What role do values, convictions, and moral principles play in identity formation?

How do group identities influence the musical behaviour of their members?

Now that the project has been successfully completed, the organisers are considering continuing it on a rotation basis. The University of Vechta in Germany has agreed to host the 2026 event. In 2027, the BIP could be held at the mdw in Vienna.