Musicians from many different parts of the world will come to The University of Tennessee this week to showcase their cultures’ musical styles.

The National Symposium on Multicultural Music will be held at the UT Conference Center from Oct. 6 to Oct. 9. The performances are free and open to the public.

“I just think it is a great opportunity for people to see music from so many different cultures in one place because we have people representing (cultures from) all over the world. We just have a really wide variety, so it’s really interesting to see so many different representations of so many different cultures,” E. Gaile Stephens, graduate student in music, said.

Marvelene Moore, chair and founder of the symposium, said the symposium is aimed at teachers and showing them different types of music and how to teach music in their classes. Workshops and research elements are available to help the teachers with that aim. These parts are not open to the public. She said usually between 85 and 150 teachers register and attend the entire symposium.

“Our intent in hosting this symposium this time is to provide sessions for the participants who will attend those at the UT Conference Center,” Moore said. “But we also wanted to do outreach and provide some things for the community, some concerts or sessions and some sessions or performances in the public schools. So what we’re trying to do is to bring educators, people in the community and students in the public schools and at the university together in some way to experience all these different types of music.”

Among the types of music that will be presented to the public are Latin jazz, African dance and drumming, Irish music and dance, the music, dance and puppetry of Burma and music of Iraq.

The presenters will talk about the music before the performances to tell a little about the special features of the music and what to listen for, Moore said.

“It is a sort of teaching situation that’s in a performance venue … and they also encourage the audience to ask questions,” Moore said.

A movie by Miramax, “The Chorus” will also be previewed. It is about a music teacher who can save problem kids from different cultures by having them involved in a boys’ choir.

Moore founded the symposium, and the first one was held in 1995. The conferences are held biannually, and this is the fifth symposium.

The symposium is being presented by the UT School of Music and the National Association for Music Education.

More information is available at http://www.music.utk.edu/multiculturalsymposium.html.