MCA’s Music: Play for Life program was the outright winner of the International Music Council’s Musical Rights Awards for the biennium 2010-11. The IMC’s platform is based on five musical rights which in turn are based upon UN covenants such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and various subsequent offshoots. They include the right to a music education, to participation in one’s own culture, to freedom of expression through music.

Music: Play for Life supports most of those rights through its programs to build opportunities for music education and musical opportunities in communities.

Music: Play for Life Manager Tina Broad travelled to Estonia to receive the award. She gave a vivid presentation of the program. It succeeded against competition from a number of other wonderful programs, including the ‘Polifonia’ Network of the European Association of Conservatoires, the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq, Hearts in Harmony project in Barcelona, Espace Akto in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Hong Kong Institute of Education’s program, Teaching Cantonese Opera in Hong Kong Schools.

Music: Play for Life includes programs such as Music: Count Us In, the Flame Awards, the musiceducation.edu.au website, the More Music Toolkit website, the Music in Communities Network, and Awards, the Making Music Being Well national event, and more. A pretty formidable line-up.