It is important that the philosophies of equitable co-existence that emerge in the lived contexts of music-making by professional musicians be applied into music education, not least due to today’s prevailing worldviews that are increasingly favouring an uncomfortable opposition of nature and reason. In this article, I draw on the philosophies of Zygmunt Bauman that urge us to seek ways of being for one another before seeking to be with the other. I adopt a qualitative instrumental case study methodology with an aim to analyse a slice of musical life and experience from the careers of professional migrant musicians living in Brisbane, Australia. The study is undertaken in the context of Lullaby Land, a compact music ensemble of four members including myself. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and rehearsal commentaries as well as my own reflexive insights as participant-researcher, I thematically analyse the data and derive implications for diversity and inclusivity in musicmaking from the professional context of Lullaby Land. The analysis revealed patterns of meaning across three key themes: Culturally contingent differences are central to musicians’ identity and are to be celebrated; learning stems from qualities of respect and empathy; music is a powerful language of belonging and a means of active self-representation in a foreign land. I then extrapolate the above themes that have been identified from a professional music-making context into a model for intercultural higher music education. The model proposed here is grounded on understanding how we, as a collective humanity that today grapples with issues of ethics and politics in diversity in multifarious ways, can adopt a philosophy of being for one another before being with one another. The theorised model is predicated on action and features a series of verbs—narrate, empathise, celebrate, explore, connect, and crystallise—that culminate in ethical learning. I offer this model as a counter- narrative to the widespread ethos of inaction on the one hand, and of oversimplification of subtle differences that constitute the bedrock of diversity, on the other. Theoretically, the model presents a recontextualisation of professional musicians’ lived experiences within the systematic constructs of higher music education, thereby calling for meaningful correspondences between these two entangled spheres of operation in the broader field of music research. The model is yet to be trialled in a pedagogical context, however, I propose that it would hold relevance for both music educators and music professionals who engage with cultural diversity in their practices.