International organization. It was initiated in Belgium in 1940 by Marcel Cuvelier to propagate live music and related arts in schools, universities and among working youth, regardless of political or doctrinaire considerations. It has established an effective international network of artistic exchanges, bringing many young performers before the public through concert tours and competitions; it also encourages performance by young people by establishing music camps and forming international orchestras directed by outstanding conductors. In keeping with its broad humanitarian aims it was a founder-member of the International Music Council in 1949. The first Jeunesses Musicales concert was in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, on 17 October 1940. The movement spread to France in the following year through the efforts of René Nicoly, and in 1945 the Fédération Internationale des Jeunesses Musicales (FIJM) was founded; its first international congress was in 1946. The founders included Gilles Lefèbvre, Alicia de Larrocha, Robert Mayer (who later founded Youth and Music in London on the model of the Jeunesses Musicales), Joan Miró, Pierre A. Pillet, Henryk Szeryng and Nicanor Zabaleta, in addition to the Jeunesses Musicales of France, Belgium and Canada. The movement grew rapidly; its first music camp was at Orford in Canada in 1951 and the first transatlantic exchanges of young musicians were in 1953, followed in 1956 by the first of an annual series of summer courses at Schloss Weikersheim in the German Federal Republic. In 1960 an international chorus was founded and an international competition for young pianists was organized; in 1969 a FIJM International Centre was established at Grozjan, a village in Yugoslavia, and in the same year the World Orchestra of the FIJM was formed with financial aid from the Canadian government. This orchestra meets annually and consists of graduate music students from many countries playing under leading conductors. The World Youth Choir was created in 1990 and meets each summer, performing both mainstream and contemporary repertory. The FIJM also embraces traditional music, rock music and jazz, organizes festivals and competitions and arranges international tours for gifted young musicians. In 1999 it encompassed 41 countries and 500,000 members.