"Music Making and Civic Imagination is an invitation to expand our capacities and connections, and to be reminded of our common humanity through music-making. [...] Camlin’s proposition of music-making as a holistic and contextual practice, as a way of creating and strengthening kinship, and inviting civic imagination and responsibility, is a hopeful and deeply moving provocation to us all as global citizens. It encourages creative, intellectual and spiritual engagement."
 

Cynthia Kinnunen, International Journal of Community Music

"[As] I read Camlin’s work, I was struck by its criticality and reflexivity. It avoids simplistic claims such as ‘music can solve everything’. The depth of scholarship underpinning his arguments situates music as socially meaningful and biologically adaptive, while also providing a vocabulary for imagining inclusive, ethical, and civic possibilities in music education. . .

Reading this book resonated deeply with me as an early-career researcher navigating music education with a social justice focus. Camlin’s text functions almost as a companion voice, offering guidance and reassurance when direct mentorship or reflective conversations may not be immediately available. One of the book’s most striking contributions is its insistence on teaching with rather than teaching to, reframing educators as collaborators and companions who create spaces for exploration and collective imagination. . . . Overall, Camlin’s work affirms the social and biological significance of music, challenges dominant logics of measurement and productivity, and invites educators to envision learning spaces in which participation, difference, creativity and ethical engagement are valued intrinsically. I believe this will be an essential reading for anyone committed to transforming music education or who needs a reassuring reminder that the complexity, challenges and exhaustion of this work are valid."

Chi Ying Lam, British Journal of Music Education