The MusicGens Consortium: Growing robust and rigorous approaches to musicality genomics

The etiology and effects of musicality, broadly defined as the set of fundamental human capacities to interact with music, have mainly been studied via brain and behavioral methods and primarily at small scale, until very recently. We formally established the Musicality Genomics Consortium (MusicGens) in 2022 as an international network of researchers dedicated to the advancement of research on the genomics of human musicality traits via multisite, cross-disciplinary collaboration. The purpose of MusicGens is to enable scientific discoveries related to the genetics, genomics and phenomics of musicality, by fostering research directions of a large magnitude that would not be possible for any single research group to pursue alone. The overarching objective of this grant is to provide a stable forum to nurture a robust and rigorous science of musicality genetics via conference support for the annual meeting of MusicGens. The conference funding will support the educational and research missions of the annual meeting, with specific resources dedicated to interdisciplinary workforce development and to developing strategies for augmenting musicality genomics research in global populations that reflect the broadest range of genetic variation and musicality phenotypes in humans. The conference support has the potential for impact in the arena of multiple basic science and translational manifestations of how and why musicality unfolds over the lifespan, with particularly innovative potential for precision health.