UNESCO's City of Music programme is part of the wider

Creative Cities Network The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) is a project of UNESCO launched in 2004 to promote cooperation among cities which recognized creativity as a major factor in their urban development.UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

. Designated UNESCO Cities of Music share similar characteristics: * recognised centres of musical creation and activity * experience in hosting

music festivals A music festival is a community event with performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock, blues, folk, jazz, classical music), nationality, locality of musicians, or hol ...

and events at a national or international level * promotion of the music industry in all its forms * music schools, conservatories, academies, and higher education institutions specialised in music * informal structures for music education, including amateur choirs and

orchestras An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ce ...

* domestic or international platforms dedicated to particular

genres of music A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from ''musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are some ...

and/or music from other countries * cultural spaces suited for practicing and listening to music, e.g. open-air auditoriums.

About the cities

In March 2006,

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

was designated as the first City of Music.

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

was named approximately two months later. Seville has a "legendary

Flamenco Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...

scene," and

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

lists Flamenco as an " intangible cultural heritage."

Hamamatsu is a city located in western Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. the city had an estimated population of 791,707 in 340,591 households, making it the prefecture's largest city, and a population density of . The total area of the site was . Overview Ha ...

is the founding city of musical instrument companies

Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...

Kawai is a musical instrument manufacturing company headquartered in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan. It is best known for its grand pianos, upright pianos, digital pianos, electronic keyboards and electronic synthesizers. The company was founded in Augus ...

, and Roland. It has also an Museum of Musical Instruments.

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

—"the city that spawned

The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...

"—earned its designation due to music's "place in the heart of the city's life." UNESCO also noted a "clearly defined"

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

, and

skills A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of w ...

strategy for young people.

Idanha-a-Nova Idanha-a-Nova () is a town and surrounding municipality in the district of Castelo Branco, in east-central Portugal. A border municipality with Spain, the population of the municipality in 2011 was 9,716, in an area of 1416.34 km2, making it ...

"lives by the rhythm of music,"

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

is a "city full of culture," and

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

is the "beating heart of

New Zealand's New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country b ...

music industry."

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

is "sophisticated, cultured, and neat-casual," Daegu is a "pleasant and progressive place," and Leiria is an "agreeable mixture of medieval and modern."

Cities of Music

As of 2019, forty-seven Cities of Music have been designated by UNESCO. Nineteen of the participating cities are

European European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...

, ten are

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

and Middle Eastern.

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

and North America each have six,

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

has four, and two have been designated in

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...

. Seven countries have two member cities. Colombia,

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

are the only countries to have three designated cities. The Cities of Music are:

References

{{reflistBelfast: https://en.unesco.org/creative-cities/belfast Musical culture UNESCO Lists of cities

About the cities

Cities of Music

See also

References