The Ninth International Symposium on Assessment in Music Education was held in Hannover, Germany, from March 20–22, 2023, and was jointly hosted by the University of Florida and the Hochschule fu¨r Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover. The symposium brought together nearly 100 participants from seven nations across five continents and 13 U.S. states to learn of each other's work, establish collaborations and professional networks, and shape new directions for research in this important area of music education.

The papers published in this volume represent the remarkable diversity of music education assessment practices across the world as well as the unity of purpose and mission that brings music educators and music teacher educators together in their implementation of these practices. The research included here helps to illuminate both the ways that specific practices and contexts differ from each other and the common threads that underlie them. In a time of increasing diversification and, too often, division across the world, these papers help to demonstrate the ways in which our field can find a path forward that holds us together while recognizing our differences.