Popular Colombian band Bomba Estereo has been asked to cancel their free concert in Jaffa as part of a boycott of Israel. The appeal has been made by the Colombian section of the “boycott Israel” campaign has appealed to the band to turn down the invitation to play in Jaffa to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

For five days in July, the New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan hosts the daytime sessions of the Latin Alternative Music Conference (or LAMC). Each afternoon there are talks, gear demonstrations, lots of networking, and a general pulse of excitement in the air, but one of the best things about attending LAMC is the chance for unexpected encounters and chats with artists creating music all over the globe: From bands that are coming to the US for the first time, to industry veterans with Grammys lining their mantles.

Sharing a love for music – and head-banging – two Israeli and Palestinian rock bands have joined forces to take a “message of coexistence through rock’n’roll across Europe,” The Guardian reported on Monday. The Israeli band “Orphaned Land” and Palestinian group “Khalas” both believe that music is above politics, religion and conflict and should bring people together.

At its core, the Latin Alternative Music Conference is a gathering of dedicated underdogs, rallying behind music that envisions a polyglot, multicultural, border-hopping 21st-century culture but faces stubborn barriers, in the United States, of language and radio formats. The term “Latin alternative” makes room for pop, indie-rock, electronica, hip-hop, punk and hard rock, all loosely connected by a willingness to push past divisions of genre and geography.

The International Association of Music Colleges and Universities (IAMCU) has launched to facilitate global collaboration between schools to 'best equip students for future success'. The three founding schools are: The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London, England, LAMA College for Music Professional in Los Angeles, USA and Academia de Música Fermatta in Mexico City & Guadalajara, Mexico.

The Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) has become the first specialist contemporary music school in further and higher education to offer students an exchange programme between the UK and the US. Starting from 2014, ACM students have the option to study at both ACM in England and its sister college ACM@UCO in Oklahoma.

The Lo’Jo, a community of global citizens who play a special music of their own, will give performances in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to mark 40 years of diplomatic ties between Vietnam and France.

At the official launch of the Qatar UK 2013 cultural programme in December, the talk was of mutual understanding of Arab Islamic and Anglo-Saxon cultures, building bridges between the two nations, and aims of long-term partnerships in the fields of education, sport, science and the creative industries.