Global Music Initiative

Social change and connection through music.

Founded at Vanderbilt University, GMI is the beginning of a growing global network of students, musicians, and communities who share, preserve, and open doors to music.

See the Nepal project Apply to the 2027 cohort

What we do

Music is how people find each other.

We start at Vanderbilt, but GMI is built as a network: university chapters and partner communities, connected through music. See our five-year plan

Connect

We bring people and cultures together through music, across borders and backgrounds.

Preserve

We document living musical traditions alongside the communities who carry them, so they can be passed on.

Open doors

We work to expand access to music education for students in underserved and rural communities.

Flagship project · Nepal

The Sarangi Documentation Project

In a rural, high-altitude region of Nepal, Gandharva musicians carry an oral storytelling tradition on the sarangi, a bowed string instrument. Much of it has never been fully recorded.

With The Initiatives Foundation, we're creating the first thorough documentary and written record of this tradition. It's our first field project, and the first link in a growing network of partner communities around the world.

Explore the Nepal project

PartnerThe Initiatives Foundation
Karun Dhakal, Director
FieldworkMay to mid-June 2027
What we're makingA substantial documentary and a full audio, video, and written archive
Faculty advisorKevin Rilling

About us

Started at Vanderbilt, built for the world.

GMI began through Immersion Vanderbilt with one goal: use music to connect people and create real change.

Our founder, Makoa Lewis, grew up in rural Hockinson, Washington, and found his path through percussion. At 15 he was accepted to the YOLA National Festival and performed alongside the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel. GMI exists to open that same kind of door for others.

Read Makoa's story Meet the founding chapter