Anaïs Fléchetis Professor in International History at Sciences Po Strasbourg and member of the Research Team Laboratoire international d’Etudes Culturelles. Her research focuses on music and international history, cultural globalization, and Latin America. Her publications include: Music and Postwar Transitions in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries (Berghahn, 2023), Cultural History in France (Routledge, 2019), Histoire culturelle du Brésil (IHEAL éditions, 2019). Her upcoming book (Tuned into the World: UNESCO and Music during the Cold War, Oxford University Press)explores the relationship between music, diplomacy, and propaganda during the Cold War through the actions of the International Music Council/UNESCO.

Abstract: As a symbol of peace and universal harmony, music soon became part of UNESCO’s mission. In 1949, the International Music Council (IMC) was created to promote musical exchanges across cultural boundaries and political rivalries among nations.Yet, his facade of apoliticism masked a clear ideological alignment with the United States during the early Cold War. The IMC’s financial records, choice of permanent staff, voluminous correspondence with the US State Department, and close links with the Congress for Cultural Freedom—a private organization that was funded on the quiet by the CIA to combat “Marxist infiltration” in European cultural circles—all indicate that the organization was anything but apolitical. Until the late 1950s, The International Music Council’s actions were oriented in two directions. It aimed, on the one hand, to develop music education by founding the International Society for Music Education (1953) and, on the other, to support contemporary composers through scholarships, record production, the publication of scores, and the creation of the International Rostrum of Composers, a program that interlinked the radio stations of member countries. Many big names were associated with the International Music Council as were the various “new music” trends emerging from the likes of Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Schaeffer, and Luigi Nono. Drawing on archival materials from the International Music Council, the UNESCO and the US National Archives, this paper explores the role of UNESCO in the development of avant-garde music in Europe during the early Cold War.