Safeguarding Music For Future Generations

The Global Music Vault is dedicated to safeguarding the world’s music of yesterday and today, forever. With support from their founding partner the International Music Council (IMC), their mission is to pass on the world heritage to the next generations, while at the same time celebrating the music that has shaped our cultures and inspired a global community, by ensuring it is never forgotten.


Global Music Vault uses a dedicated vault, exclusively for music capsules, located deep inside the same arctic mountain as the Global Seed Vault (Doomsday Vault) on Svalbard in far north Norway. Here, master music files of unique and irreplaceable music will be preserved on the music capsules using the most innovative, future-proof and timeless storage technologies available, protected in the vault and remembered for eternity.

“We want to offer the music community a solution for the future, in a world where storage and security is expected to be in short supply”, says Luke Jenkinson, Managing Director of the Global Music Vault.

He adds that partnering with the International Music Council (IMC) is in line with their mission and call to action. He believes that together they can reach the goal of preserving the legacy of music for mankind.

The International Music Council (IMC), founded in 1949 by UNESCO, is the world's largest network of organizations and institutions working in the field of music. The IMC promotes access to music for all and the value of music in the lives of all peoples. Through its members and their networks, the IMC has direct access to over 1000 organizations in some 150 countries and to 200 million persons eager to develop and share knowledge and experience on diverse aspects of musical life.

In parallel with the IMC joining the Global Music Vault on this mission as a founding partner, the President of the IMC, Mr Alfons Karabuda has been appointed Board Director of the Global Music Vault's advisory board.

“Becoming a founding partner of the Global Music Vault is a natural step of IMC’s global mission to safeguard and promote the value of music in the lives of all people. We see the Global Music Vault as a solution to a couple of the big challenges faced by the musical ecosystem of today – notably the danger of the world forgetting about music cultures or not being able to access this rich diversity”, says Alfons Karabuda, President of the IMC.

The IMC has developed, proclaimed and works towards the advancement of a set of core values called the ‘Five Music Rights’. These core values guide the IMC, its regional groups and members worldwide in all of their work and actions. They are inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the PEN charter and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

“Historically, the music ecosystem has experienced a variety of different challenges depending on from where in the world we are facing them. What we are seeing now with the pandemic is that we all face similar threats to our musical value chain. Only with a global awareness can we safeguard the musical diversity of every region, country, city, and village. The IMC sees the Global Music Vault not only as a tool to safeguard the music but also as an enabler empowering the ones creating and performing it” says Karabuda.

Global Music Vault shares and adopts these values to apply to their initiative and on their mission to safeguard the world’s musical expressions for eternity, ensuring that these are preserved and accessible for all generations to come. Global Music Vault’s belief is that music should be accessible for everyone, and it supports and subscribes to the International Music Council’s Five Music Rights.

“Despite the fact that the way we create, perform and enjoy music has undergone a massive digital change in recent decades, the new digital solutions may also become outdated over time”, says Jenkinson.

With both parties advocating for the safeguarding and accessibility of diverse living expressions, the joining of these two forces in partnership is a natural step in their mission to secure ‘Music for all - both now and in the future’.

“Music is part of our heritage, and it is a powerful force - through all times music has built bridges between people, across generations, across cultures, between war and peace. We need to appreciate what part music plays in people’s lives”, says Karabuda.

The partnership will begin with a global campaign titled ‘Project: ARV’, a callout to encourage the world to gather musical expressions to be deposited and safeguarded in the vault while celebrated in an inaugural event with representatives from every country and region involved.

To find out more visit globalmusicvault.com.