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OneBeat is an international music exchange that celebrates musical collaboration and social engagement through innovative people-to-people diplomacy. Thirty musicians (ages 19-35) from around the world come together annually in the U.S. for one month to collaboratively write, produce, and perform original music, and develop ways that music can make a positive impact on our local and global communities.

OneBeat is a musical journey like no other. It is a chance for adventurous musicians from an incredible diversity of traditions to seek common ground, creating new musical combinations, pushing the boundaries of music technology, and finding ways to involve all members of society in the process of musical creativity. OneBeat endeavors to be the nexus of a new way of thinking about how music can connect people from across the world and around the block.

OneBeat is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, administered by Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation. OneBeat builds on the State Department’s vision of “smart power” diplomacy. It embraces the use of a full range of diplomatic tools, including music, to bring people, especially youth, together for greater understanding.

For more information, visit www.1beat.org.