Ever since it began as a podcast during the pandemic, Out of the Box (OOTB) has been taking small steps to build up a community for music educators. After two seasons of the podcast, the arts education organisation OffSet Education’s founders Nush Lewis and Shanelle Rodrigues launched an online community platform in 2024.

“We engaged with the community by hosting online professional development workshops and resource pool sessions, and by doing that the community slowly started growing. By the end of 2024, we had 200 members pan-India, and have crossed 700 members as of today. This started as an experiment and we did not expect it to grow this large,” Nush says.

They took another step towards an on-ground event for their community of arts educators and practitioners by kicking off OOTB Soundboard as a symposium involving a panel discussion, a workshop and a mixer event for networking in Mumbai in 2025. This Sunday at The Humming Tree in Indiranagar, OOTB Soundboard hosts its first edition in the city, scaling up as not only as a music symposium, but also with hosting educators in broader arts spaces such as theatre and dance.

“I think it is important for these worlds to converse in order to impact change. We have people such as Sanjana Samraj and Anupa Gnanakan who come from general education spaces,” Nush says. Also a singer-songwriter and a harpist in addition to running OffSet, she believes it is only when cross-pollination between these worlds happens that India can foster more “diverse artistes”.

Through the day, Soundboard 2026 will host a fireside chat between podcaster Mae Thomas and seasoned music educator Wendy Dickson about why music and music education still matters, and a panel discussion about the landscape of arts education in India that brings together pianist, musicologist and educator Karl Lutchmayer, Anupa Gnanakan, researcher and artiste Shilpa Mudbi Kothakota, artiste/entrepreneur Bindu Subramaniam. OffSet will also present excerpts from the OOTB Music Education Survey Report 2025.

Business lawyer Sandhya Surendran will lead a workshop on licensing original curriculum and teaching materials, while artiste MD Pallavi will conduct a workshop on creativity. Pallavi praises the idea of OOTB Soundboard being a space where music and art educators can convene. “Most of the time musicians and educators work in their own confined spaces. OOTB allows for them to come out of that, gaining fresh perspectives on music, teaching and exchanging methodologies. This allows for a community to be formed and solidarities to be built which I feel is necessary,” she says.

Talking about her workshop, she says a bit light-heartedly that she may learn more from her audience in the session than vice versa. She adds, “I hope to have an interactive workshop where I will be sharing some ideas and thoughts I have been formulating about teaching music and inviting them to work on some exercises and games. From this workshop, I hope they will be able to take away a different approach to teaching and tools to develop it further.”

One of the reasons to host OOTB Soundboard in Bengaluru was because the community’s “most active members” were from the city, Nush says. “We get the most response from the city’s educators. So hosting this in Bengaluru was a no-brainer.”

Pointing out how “nothing grows without collaboration,” Nush adds that the decision to host the event at The Humming Tree reflected how much they are a “core part of the Bengaluru music community”.

The early evening program at OOTB Soundboard 2026 adds a new element compared to their Mumbai outing — a music showcase featuring performances by teachers. Nush says the idea for performances came from the community members during a meetup last month. “A lot of musicians who dedicate their lives to education don’t get many opportunities to perform so we thought why not at our symposium? We have three acts selected for this showcase: Vishal Das, Anjali Manoharan and a trio which includes Deepti Bhaskar, Aditi Bharatee and Amanda Trott,” she says.

OOTB Soundboard is clearly taking a bigger leap with their Bengaluru edition, but at the core of it is community, as Nush keeps stressing. She says, “This started as an experiment and we didn’t expect it to grow this large. But we are so grateful.”

Functioning on WhatsApp in order to keep it as accessible as possible, there are subgroups, including one for job listings that Nush says been quite impactful. “Many teachers have written to me saying they got a job or leads through that group, which makes us feel we are moving things in the right direction.”

The goal throughout, like any encouraging community, is to work together rather than jostle for space. “We have somehow maintained the group as a non-competitive space and more of a sharing space, which is the only way we believe we can impact the education landscape.”

OOTB Soundboard 2026 takes place at The Humming Tree, Indiranagar on August 2, 2026, from 10am onwards. Registration fee: ₹1,800 (includes lunch and refreshments). Details on offseteducation.mojo.page/ootb-soundboard-2026

Published - August 01, 2026 10:38 am IST