"Music is considered a universal language because it transcends to all race regardless of any language barrier. Music can communicate effectively to all men around the world and can help Europeans to know each other better overcoming ""mental borders"" in people’s minds (national, linguistic, cultural, historical, etc.).This project, titled ""Building a European Orchestra"" involved an exchange between three music high schools from Italy, Lithuania and Romania. The aim was not only to share music teaching methods and strategies, but especially to compare and finally merge the orchestras of the respective high schools from all countries. The orchestras played some music pieces separately and finally they were put together to play as one the pieces of music closing the concerts (the European anthem and, in Italy, also the ""Va, pensiero"" from Verdi's ""Nabucco""). Of course this happened as a result of a previous proper training activity!This cooperation has enriched the knowledge, the skills and the attitudes of the participants. They have learnt to appreciate the benefits of international cooperation, to overcome language and cultural barriers. They have improved their music skills and learnt how to use modern communication tools. The participating schools have also acquired the know-how to set up future international projects.The students of the music high school of Nuoro are geographically and socially disadvantaged. Their families cannot support them financially to enable them to participate in contests and meetings outside the island in order to relate and compare themselves to other high schools musical. This project aimed to get them out of isolation and helped them to learn about different realities, especially in countries that have different methods and strategies of teaching and a longer tradition of music teaching. Klaipeda Conservatory has a very long music teaching tradition, students hold a lot of concerts but mostly they played in Lithuania, because trips abroad were too expensive. Students from Romania had never participated in international projects. This project gave them the chance to perform abroad and collaborate with other countries. Of course, this exchange has enriched all the participating partners.All students and most of the staff of all schools were involved in the project. Cooperation and communication were established via modern means of communication (e-twinning, e-mail, Skype, etc.) and via the meetings. All communications were made in English. The first meeting was a preparatory visit that took place in Romania in October 2015. During this meeting the teachers chose the musical pieces and the corresponding music sheets to be adapted to the skills of the members of the orchestras, in order to prepare the training activities and the concerts that were held during the meetings in Lithuania (May 2016), Romania (October 2016), Italy (May 2017). The final product of the project is a DVD with the recording (audio and video) of the final concert, distributed to the students, their families, other schools in the area, libraries and to anyone who requested it. The rehearsals for the concerts were also filmed and kept in the schools as a testimony to the progress the orchestras made from the beginning till the end of the project.The impact on the students was very large: for most of them it was the first time to have first-hand encounters with students from another country, they have learnt and improved a comprehensive range of key skills and also developed their social graces, friendliness, reliability and adaptability. Staff have benefitted from the opportunity of an international work, experiencing different teaching styles, transferring skills from a country to another, raising standards across the curriculum.A Web site and a Facebook account were opened to gather all relevant information about the project and to share impressions about its evolution. The project results were disseminated to a maximum number of people: the students, the staff, their families, the school community, the audience at large.The final product of the project, a DVD, has been promoted via the project website, the Facebook page and the Twinspace. The concerts were widely advertised and guests including school governors, local councillors, parents and staff were invited.The project was promoted in each school's transition document given to parents and at open evenings. All schools issued press releases to the local media.At the end of the project, the partner schools remained in contact to work together and exchange good practises, music sheets, etc."

"Our project titled „UNITED IN MUSIC“ involved 60 creative and talented students and 20 Music, IT and foreign language teachers from four different cultural and geographical regions of Europe, i.e. French school - College Maxence Van Der Meersch - from the West, Romanian school - Liceul cu Program Sportiv Alba Iulia - from the East, Lithuanian school - Varėnos ""Ąžuolo"" gimnazija - from the North and Italian school - Liceo delle Scienze Umane e Musicale ""Sebastiano Satta"" - from the South.During a two-year period, 13-17-year-old students familiarized themselves with the heritage of local and their partners’ folk music, through a project website they created, www.unitedinmusic.eu.; rehearsed and performed in 3 concerts authentic songs and their arrangements internationally in two learning activities in France and Lithuania as well as at the workhop in Italy. The international team of students and teachers released a final product, a CD, with 17 authentic folk songs and 5 arrangements.This huge and amazing trans-nationally carried out work have had a great many impacts on all its participants locally as well as internationally, especially on participating students and teachers, stimulating their creativity, self-confidence, teaching tolerance, encouraging openness to the world by discovering different European countries through a common theme of music. Our schools, thanks to the project advertising, have become more attractive for future students . In Italian partners' school, the project also helped to prevent school dropouts. Moreover, the schools involved in the project will keep in touch for new projects and exchange of good practices And finally, the most important, love for music expressed through common work of children and teachers from four different European countries has established sustainable traditions of enjoying making music together."

The need for increased European unity is clear within the twenty-first century's climate of globalisation and the Youth of today are those who will be ensuring this for the future. The synergy created by comparing contrasting cultures will stimulate the necessary understanding and cooperation to aid this process. Six schools will be participating in the project representing peripheral areas of Europe : France, Romania, Turkey, Spain and Italy. For two years there will be six transnational visits involving approximately four hundred and eighty students and accompanying staff members. Specific attention to special needs students, who will be involved in the project and, for some of them, in transnational visits. The schools involved in the project are sharing the same needs, all of them lacking geographical, social, European inclusion, and already working on radio creation at school as a tool to open their students to the outside. Students and teachers will communicate and create together through the radio medium. Sound clips, reports, interviews, songs, surveys, and programs will be co-produced by the project's members.The main objective of this project is to produce a long-term radio cooperation between schools from geographically contrasting European member states and Turkey. The final product : a radio network integrated into the respective curriculae of the participating schools, teacher training colleges, on an open source dedicated website. The participating schools will be investigating the paths and necessary skills involved in journalism, media in general, through topics for the sound productions or broadcasts chosen in students’ “everyday life”, in order to impulse a real international and intercultural dialogue. Radio will enable the use of many communication and cross-disciplinary skills without requiring heavy or expensive equipments, thus mobilising both language proficiency, oral expression, media education, ICT skills, teamwork, autonomy and initiative. The result of the cooperation for the students will be improved skills and consciousness about european citizenship, but also confidence that they will be able to travel, exchange, speak, study, work, in another area than their own. For the teachers, there will be long-term effects : improved skills in sound creation, media education, innovative teaching methods, and special needs students support. Due to the distance between schools and the necessity for differenciation because of cultural and social differences, there will be an emphasis on blended learning. Integrated blended learning materials will be produced which can be used throughout Europe. Since the lingua franca will be English, the students will obviously be communicating their ideas on school, local, national and European themes in English during the transnational visits. This project will offer all interested parties in the schools (school management, parents, teachers, students, included special needs students) the opportunity to gain a greater insight into and understanding of European citizenship in other parts of Europe and the communities in which they operate. Radio is the reason why our schools wanted to work together and to get to know each other better. Thus, radio media being our common tool and main mean of communication in this project, it is obvious that we will have an important dissemination of this European project, thanks to our own productions, but also the associated partners, media and radios which will relay our project in the partnership's countries.