UMKC faculty member Jacob A. Wagner, Ph.D., recently presented at the international conference of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network held in Santos, Brazil.

Wagner described his work in organizing the global Voyage of the Drum project, depicting the role of drumming across cities and cultures and the influence of the African diaspora on music cultures internationally. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is the founder of the Creative Cities Network, which includes more than 250 cities around the world.

“For this year’s annual meeting, the UNESCO secretariat invited Kansas City to present the Voyage of the Drum project as a major effort, involving 18 different cities around the world, completed during the pandemic,” Wagner said.

A three-minute introduction to the project is available at this link. A full suite of individual music city videos is available here. The videos have had more than 4,500 global views, Wagner said.

The theme of the conference was “Creativity, Path to Equality.”

Wagner is an associate professor in the Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design (AUP+D), part of the Natural and Built Environment division of the new School of Science and Engineering.

“The project demonstrated the use of digital technology and creativity to bring cities together around a common theme, focused on music of the African diaspora, as well as the drum as a universal language,” Wagner said. The project was recognized by the UNESCO secretariat as a significant creative response to the challenges of the COVID19 pandemic.

Kansas City’s designation as a UNESCO City of Music resulted from a unique community partnership between Wagner and Anita Dixon-Brown, a cultural heritage expert and music advocate in Kansas City. In 2016, students from UMKC’s Urban Planning and Design program worked under the direction of Wagner and Dixon to produce research on Kansas City’s unique jazz and Black American musical heritage. This research provided support for Dixon’s application to the UNESCO Creative City Network.

Kansas City is the only UNESCO City of Music in the United States and one of 59 worldwide. Other U.S. cities have Creative Cities designations for Literature, Folk Art, Design, Gastronomy and other forms of cultural heritage. Each UNESCO Creative City Network member city must maintain active participation in the network through annual meetings, cooperative projects with other cities and by providing leadership on the use of creativity as a driver of sustainable urban development.

A new edition of the Voyage of the Drum is planned for next year’s annual meeting with new Creative Cities invited to participate in 2023.