Building connections among participatory creative music practitioners in Canada

The Participatory Creative Music (PCM) Hub is a digital platform that showcases and supports participatory music practitioners by providing project examples, activities and resources in healthcare, schools, community, carceral settings and more. The Hub was established by the Canadian New Music Network in 2019 and, since then, has provided visibility for the work and connected participatory artists who usually work in isolation. The two authors, one practitioner and one researcher, describe the personal and institutional histories leading to their collaboration through the PCM Hub, including some of the tensions and learnings to date, particularly around the different terminologies and negative associations with community music. They also describe the need for ongoing outreach and relationship-building in addition to the online platform, and their current efforts to build a national network that integrates research and practices towards a vibrant national PCM practice that is responsive to diverse cultural and social contexts led by practitioners who are supported in their work.