Music Network – Ireland’s national music development organisation – has recently proposed an innovative system of national music education services based on national research. Here, Martin Drury, chairman of the report’s advisory group, introduces an initiative that could transform the musical, cultural and community life of towns and townlands throughout the country.In introducing Music Network’s report on the feasibility of a national system of local music education services, and underlining some of its key features, I want to begin by locating it within a wider frame of reference to do with notions of citizenship and of social equality.