Blaustein said she was "jolted from my ivory tower" in 1988 by her immersion in the challenges facing so many of her neighbors in Manila, Philippines, where she had gone in 1988 to fulfill her Guggenheim Fellowship when her journalist boyfriend-now-husband Alan Berlow opened National Public Radio's first Asia bureau there.
It was there, she added, in addition to writing a lot of music, that "she spent time reporting in low-income urban communities and discovered her passion for telling the stories of those battling extreme poverty and injustice.
Blaustein moved to the Coalition for International Justice to continue her reporting, together with veteran humanitarian and investigator John Fawcett, on the gross human rights abuses and financial misdeeds perpetrated by alleged war criminals Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein.
In the course of that work, Blaustein and colleagues observed that across the Millennium Cities, the local women always understood the challenges facing their communities and had solutions to offer, but were rarely heeded and lacked the resources to put their ideas to the test.
[12] In 2014–15, Blaustein and several colleagues used this knowledge to found WomenStrong International, which provides grants and technical assistance to organizations that work to improve the wellbeing of women and girls in urban communities worldwide.
She has composed works commissioned by numerous artists, including by the American Composers Orchestra, New York New Music Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, cellist Joel Krosnick, and flautist Jayn Rosenfeld, and her music has been premiered by these artists, as well as by the Kronos Quartet, the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble conducted by Arthur Weisberg, baritone Elwood Peterson, mezzo-soprano Janet Steele, and the pianists Alan Feinberg, Martin Goldray and Sally Pinkas.