Marco Abbondanza, founder and director of 7 Sois 7 luas International Festival which spans over 25 regional festivals, all located around the Mediterranean Sea and other Atlantic islands and shores. The festival's main goal is to have diverse audiences listen and encounter the music and arts of other peoples and countries. Every year, the festival initiates a network of cultural exchange in which musicians (as well as other artists) from different countries visit the sites of the festival to enhance intercultural dialogue and a better understanding of foreign culture and peoples. 

Alenka Barber-Kersovan studied historical and systematical Musicology, Psychology and Aesthtics at the University of Ljubljana, Vienna and Hamburg. She worked as a music therapist at the psychiatrical clinic in Ljubljana, served as a program director of the Slovenian Musical Youth and Scientific Officer at the Institute for Sociology of Music in Vienna, and taught in the Music Academy and the Institute for Music Education in Hamburg. Currently, she is working as a lecturer at the Institute for Musicology of the University of Hamburg and serves as the Executive Director of the Arbeitskreis Studium Populärer Musik.

Nenad Bogdanovic is a Serbian born Cypriot musician, organizer and youth-cultural worker. He holds Diploma with highest honours and Mater of Fine Arts degree from The Ukrainian National P.I. Tchaikovsky Academy of Music, Kiev, Ukraine, with specialty accordion, and MA in Cultural Management, by Northumbria University, UK. Since January 2001. Nenad Bogdanovic has been residing in Cyprus and has been cooperating with many famous Cypriot and international artists and organizations. Since September 2003, he is the conductor of Mixed Choir and Program Development Consultant of “Epilogi” Cultural Movement of Limassol. He is the founder and president of Jeunesses Musicales Cyprus where he initiated a wide range of local, bi-communal and Euro-Mediterranean projects on youth empowerment through music. He is the founder and director of the first jazz orchestra in Cyprus - the Cyprus Big Band. He is also the artistic and executive director of Limassol Camerata - the first professional regional orchestra in the island. Nenad Bogdanovic is the artistic leader of MediTango orchestra specialized in tango music and Danube quartet specialized in Central European and Balkan music. Since 2008, Nenad Bogdanovic has been a member of the Board of Jeunesses Musicales International.

Veronika Cohen is currently the Chairperson of the Department of Music Education at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and served at the Dean of the Faculty of Theory, Composition, Conducting and Music Education during the years 1991-1995 and 2001-2004. Her research interests have focused on the development of musical creativity. She has developed an approach for intuitive reflection through the use of kinesthetic analogues or “musical mirrors” for musical cognitive processes. She is also a MISTEC (ISME) commissioner. Prof. Cohen is now completing a new book summarizing her research and practical work.

Danny Felsteiner, born in Haifa, studied computer engineering and later music. After having finished his degree in Music Performance and Music Education in The Hague, he moved to Jerusalem and opened a music school for Palestinian children in Silwan together with his wife Fabienne. During the last few years, both Danny and Fabienne have volunteered to do music workshops for Palestinian children summer camps in East Jerusalem and South Mount Hebron.

Marion Haak studied music education at the University of Arts, Berlin, with a focus on voice and choral conducting. After her graduation in 2006, she became part of the music education project of the Barenboim-Said Foundation in Ramallah. Since then, she has built children choir groups in Ramallah, Nablus and some other Palestinian villages, working with up to 200 children. Additionally, she is the conductor of the Ramallah-based adult choir and takes part in various local music projects, such as the Palestine Mozart Festival, 2007.

Rahib Haddad, conductor, musical director and a pioneer of Arabic music in Israel, encouraged and established different choirs for children and young people in numerous towns in the Arabic sector. He is the founder and musical director of the Al-Ba'ath adult choirs and a lecturer of Arabic music in the Jerusalem Academy of Music. Rahib is very active in re-rooting the Arabic Music culture in the mind of the local audience.

Laura Hassler grew up singing in a multicultural, idealistic community in New York. She studied cultural anthropology and music at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia, where she was also active in a musician and in the peace and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s. Her life's journey brought her to France and finally to the Netherlands, where she settled in 1977. She specialized in cultural diversity and world music, founded a World Music School and worked as cultural advisor and organizer. She founded and conducted a chamber choir, a jazz choir, a multicultural women's choir and several small vocal ensembles. Her absolute belief in the potential of music to contribute to healing the planet led in 1999 to the founding of Musicians without Borders. She is now director of Musicians without Borders and still leads the vocal ensemble LéLéMam, one of MwB's many musical ambassadors.

Timo Klemettinen was born in Imatra, Finland, and graduated as Master of Music in 1994. He has been working as a freelance musician (classical and pop-jazz), as a music teacher and as music school director. Since 1999 he has been working as the Managing Director of the Association of Finnish Music Schools. In 2003 he was appointed Secretary General of the Finnish Music Council. Since 2007 he is the Chairman of the Finnish Art School Association and since 2008 Chairman of the EMC Board. 

Dubi Lenz has been working over three decades in the I.D.F. Radio Station as a broadcaster and editor, mainly of music programs, 15 years of this period as the head of the music department. Since 1998 he has been the artistic director of "Hearing the World" festival in Tel Aviv, "Tel Aviv World music Festival" and a musical consultant to the "Red Sae Jazz Festival" in Eilat. He is a member (and former chairman) of the Forum Worldwide Music Festivals in Europe (EFWMF) and was an international board member of the WMCE- World Music Chart Europe, he is also the artistic director of numerous musical festivals and projects in Israel-"La Fête de la Musique 2006", "International Music Exposure", "Givatayim Jazz Festival", the "Brazilian Choro Year in Israel 2008" and others. 

Melisse Lewine-Boskovich has completed her Master studies in both Music (Voice) and Theatre studies, in Philadelphia, and pursued a stage career until the birth of her daughter, Alexandra, which served a turning point in her life. In 1996 she established the regional office of Play for Peace, a global initiative. In 1998, she assumed the role of director of Peace Child Israel, where she initiated diverse musical and theatrical productions shared by Israeli and Palestinian college students, artists and children. Melissa Lewine-Boskovich is also founder of the Arab-Jewish group Adamai Ensemble and produced an album and a clip of the song "Too Absurd", for which she wrote the lyrics and which was prize winner at a number of festivals, including "World Movement for Democracy".

Myrna Lewis has a B.A. degree in social work, Honours in Psychology and Masters Degree in clinical psychology. Since 1984 she has been working in the industrial business world and maintains a management consultancy company providing new psychological processes both locally and internationally. She initiated her present career path as a human resource director to a large international company. Since 1990 she has been working in the private sector as part of Dharma Partners. This consultancy group specialises in introducing cutting edge psychological technology. Deep Democracy, an adoption of process-orientated psychology was designed and adapted by Dharma partner. The concepts tools and techniques of Deep Democracy enrich any organization that is going through development transformation and change. The methodology which is primarily a facilitation technique, focuses on the decision making process. Without true "buy in" by the stakeholders change does not take place. In 2001 Myrna was given an Ashoka award. The award is given to people who are perceived as social entrepreneurs with the view that their work will be innovative and unique in uplifting the community. The award has enabled Myrna to introduce the concepts of Deep Democracy into schools and to lay counsellors working with HIV/Aids infected people.

Dochy Lichtensztajn, musicologist and music educator, currently works for the Levinsky School of Music Education as lecturer in Western Music Literature and History, Coordinator of music programs in the "MILEV" Interdisciplinary Center of Cultural Heritage, and tutor/supervisor in teaching training in secondary schools. Since 1998, she has been the pedagogical director of the community project "Live Music Encounters" leading the "keynote Programme" with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with other local Israeli orchestras and Jewish- Arab Music Institutes. In 2008 she was elected as a commissioner of the ISME-CMA.

Eva de Mayo, Conductor and music teacher, has been an active founder of the Tel-Aviv Jewish-Arab choir, as well as the SAWA choir in Sh'faram. Since 1995 she also conducted the "Sheba" Ethiopian children choir in Israel, who performed extensively in Israel and abroad. 

Henrik Melius' background is diverse in the sense that he has lived and worked in a number of different countries. During his early years his family spent considerable time in the United Kingdom and later, he worked in Germany and Austria as a full-time musician. He lived many years in the United States where he studied at UCLA, worked as a musician, marketing research and finally as a physical instructor at the well-known health retreat The Ashram. Some years ago he composed a song called "The Forgiven World" which was well received on American radio. The song reached the airwaves across America right around the time of 9/11. As the founder and director of Spiritus Mundi, Henrik's main initiative is to educate musicians/cultural professionals in a number of subjects in The Cultural Ambassadors' programme. He believes music and cultural arts carry a universal language that sees no borders or limitations. Spiritus Mundi is now building up its trade, where it can offer organisations, businesses, institutions and governments powerful tools to diminish fear and misconceptions of different traditions and religions.

Dr. David Sanders has been the Director of the National Music Council of the United States since 1994. He produces the NMC's annual Leadership in Music symposium and American Eagle Awards in New York City, and is the U.S. representative to the International Music Council. Dr. Sanders received his Ph.D. from New York University, is a composer and associate professor in the Broadcasting Department at the Montclair State University (MSU). In addition to his duties as producer of Inside MSU, the weekly campus television news programme and audio supervisor for Carpe Diem, the MSU Broadcasting Department's award winning weekly cable show, he teaches courses in sound design, music technology, audio production, and television production.

Edwin Seroussi, Professor of Musicology and Director of the Jewish Music Research Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 2000, was born in Montevideo, Uruguay and immigrated to Israel in 1971. Held lectureships at the Department of Musicology of Tel-Aviv University and the Levinsky Teachers' College in Tel-Aviv, before his full time appointment at Bar-Ilan University in 1990, where he was head of the Department of Music from 1990 to 1998. Edwin Seroussi was visiting professor at Binghamton University (New York, 1992-1993) and the University of California, Los Angeles (1998-1999). His works include: "Schir Hakawod and the Liturgical Music Reforms in the Sephardi Community in Vienna, ca. 1881-1925", Ph.D. diss. University of California, Los Angeles (1998); Spanish-Portugese Synagogue Music in Nineteenth-century Reform Sources fromHamburg: Ancient Tradition in the Dawn of Modernity (Jerusalem 1996); Cancionero sefardí by Alberto Hemsi (Jerusalem 1995); Mizimrat Quedem: The life and Music of R.Isaac Algazi from Turkey (Jerusalem 1098) and more than forty articles on diverse aspects of Sephardic music traditions.

Maya Shavit was born in Kibbutz Maabarot and studied at the Music Teachers' College in Tel Aviv. She is also graduate of the Musicology Department of Tel Aviv University and is studying choral conducting under maestros Gary Bertini and John Alldis. She is the founder of the "Efroni" girls' choir and has been its musical director since 1981. The choir has reached international acclaim through concert tours in Europe, America and Japan. Maya Shavit is one of the most active members of the Israeli choral scene, focusing on promoting original Israeli music for children's choirs and heading hallal, the Israel Choral Organization.

Hania Souda Sabbara lives to spread the joy of music. She believes that music is a prayer directed not only towards God, but also to the universal human spirit. She completed her first degree in Music Education to be able to make a career of her mission. She is currently the director of the Magnificat Institute, an academy of music sponsored by the Custody of the Holy Land, located at the Franciscan Convent in the Old City of Jerusalem. Apart from directing the institute's curriculum and conducting its children's choir, Hania is also the conductor of the Custody's choir that sings the midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Wouter Turkenburg, the founder and first president of the International Association of Schools of Jazz, has been a key figure in the last decades on several European platforms, as member and director of several boards: Amsterdam and Rotterdam Arts Councils, Foundation Jazz concerts in The Hague, North Sea Jazz Festival, Delta Jazz Foundation, Nimbus Collective, European Music Council and others. He studied Classical guitar at the Conservatory of Arnhem and Musicology at the University of Amsterdam, and had a long period of musical education career in diverse music institutes in the Netherlands. He is currently lecturing on Jazz history on both Utrecht and Leiden Universities.

Merlijn Twaalfhoven is a composer searching for uncommon situations in the middle of society to create his highly participatory work. He often connects local musicians, children and volunteers to his unconventional performances. During the last years he has created some spectacular projects connecting cultures that suffer from conflict or imbalance. In Cyprus he placed 400 musicians and children over rooftops, balconies and streets that separate the Turkish-Greek communities and created music that sounded across the borders. In Israel he has worked with many musicians, students and children to create a musical work on both sides of the separation wall in Bethlehem.

Frans Wolfkamp is the managing director of Music in ME which was established in 2003 in the Netherlands as umbrella organization of national foundations in Canada, France, Portugal, United Kingdom and the United States. Music in ME International is active in Egypt, Iraq, Kurdistan, Israel, Joran, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories and Syria. The aim of the international foundation is to raise funds for the projects and to create awareness for the projects of Musicin ME. In this way, the national foundations pay not only attention to the problems of the Middle East, but also to the rich musical heritage of the Middle East.