The MUSILIB project offers an expanded multilingual and multicultural online library for children, developed as part of the previous successful MultiLib project (www.multilibproject.eu), containing 26 children’s stories translated into 6 European languages and 6 additional minority languages from each partner country. Follow-up project MUSILIB will provide new ideas, inspirations, methodology, and tools by using a very effective medium: music, which is in an indispensable reflection of culture.

Project partners: Övermark skola (Finland) The Mosaic Art and Sound (Great Britain) Viksjöfors skola (Sweden) Spolek PELICAN (Czech Republic) Technical University of Crete (Greece) University of Cukurova (Turkey) Menuhin Foundation (Belgium)

The Platform Kinderen op de vlucht / Plate-forme Mineurs en exil is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. For this occasion, they will organise on the 26 November  a day full of sharing and meetings as well as policy debates on the future opportunities and challenges for children in migration. But it would not be a true celebration without music! That’s where the IYMF comes in with a musical journey between East and West.

IYMF organizes international artistic residencies for young artists from diverse cultures. These creative laboratories encourage the exchange of knowledge, invite to explore and experiment new fields, open up new horizons, provide new skills and promote co-creation.

From the 24th until the 30th of June 2019, IYMF held an artistic residency in the Domaine de Farnières (South of Belgium) in the context of the Music Up Close Network, with artists ambassadors and experts such as Osvaldo Hernadez, Hippolyte Bohouo and Kankan Bayo, Diane Broman, and Dimitri Psonis. The residency was directed by Thierry Van Roy.

• Watch the video made by Tv Lux 
• Podcast RTBF 
• L’Avenir (04/07/2019)

On June 3, 2019, the 15th startsocial e.V. competition took place in Berlin. Startsocial is a nationwide competition for the promotion of volunteer social commitment and awards 100 four-month consulting scholarships and 25 awards each year, including seven cash prizes, under the motto “Help for Helpers”. MUS-E Deutschland e.V. was one of the top 25 most convincing social initiatives in Germany this year and was invited to the Federal Chancellery by Chancellor Angela Merkel to receive the honorary award. This year, the Chancellor’s special prize went to Elektriker ohne Grenzen e.V. from Karlsruhe.They were able to draw many people’s attention to the important work of MUS-E Deutschland e.V. and thus spread the message of MUS-E even further. Congratulations!

The Open University Yoga & Ayurvéda directed by Kiran Vyas, member of the Board of the Foundation. Kiran Vyas, pioneer of Ayurveda in France and Europe
and his team have been teaching Yoga and Ayurveda for more than 35 years. On the 10, 11 and 12 May 2019 the “Journées Littéraires” were taking place in Tapovan on the theme of “Visages de l’amour. La nature, l’art, l’humain…le divin”. Marianne Poncelet was participating to the roundtables and spoke about the love of music and the music of love by evoking Yehudi Menuhin and sharing moving anectodes.

Tout le printemps des paysages et des rivières monte comme un encens dans mon cœur, et le souffle de toutes choses chante en mes pensées comme une flûte

Rabindranath Tagore

Yehudi Menuhin was one of the greatest musicians of all time. But not only. From the concentration camps liberated in 1945 to the end of the siege of Sarajevo in 1996, Yehudi Menuhin never resolved to separate music from his political commitments and he was the author of impactful writings and speeches. More than ever, his values and messages of tolerance are a powerful source of inspiration for the 21^st century and the future of Europe, especially at the eve of the European Parliamentary elections.

For those who have not dared to enter his music, his texts and speeches will be the gateway to the universe of this great musician engaged in the battles of his century.

“Yehudi Menuhin for Europe” is a recollection of inspirational speeches and writings as well as joyful souvenirs, pictures and videos that should resonate with the present days.

On the 4th of May, we held the final event of the project Homelands, places of belonging celebrating and shedding a spotlight on 6 monhts of co-creation and fruitfult collaboration between 8 refugee-artists and partners from the socio-cultural sector of Brussels! This is just to get a taste of the event… Pictures by Kristof Claeys.

On the 10th of December 2018, the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation collaborated with Emergences asbl for the conference of Pierre Rabhi, a dear fiend to Yehudi Menuhin, on “La Sobriété Heureuse” at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). On this occasion, the orchestra in residence at IYMF – The Brussels Chamber Orchestra (BCO) – gave a unique performance.

One of the highlights of the year 2018  was the “Diversity Makes Music” concert in Flagey – one of the most important cultural venues of Brussels – on 21 November 2018. Through this concert we wanted to address an contemporary issue dear to us all, namely the migration crisis. This unique concert was a dialogue between East and West, retracing the journey of the Syrian dancer Ahmad Joudeh who was forced to leave his country and travel to Europe. Whereas policies and politicians often fail to create links between very different populations, between the welcoming and the welcomed, artists have a special talent for building bridges and highlighting the universality of what unites us rather than what separates us. This was the message conveyed by this event, which was a great success and a dynamic demonstration of social inclusion at European level.

© Pictures Doron Chmiel