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News and events from around the world this month

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Agnieszka Żyniewicz, a viola student at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama

COCHRANE/GUILDHALL SCHOOL OF MUSIC & DRAMA PAUL

The student bodies of conservatoires are some of the most international of all specialist higher education institutions. The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) in Glasgow, for example, has students from more than 60 countries. New York’s Juilliard School currently has 31 per cent international students with 44 nationalities represented. And at the Hochschule für Musik (HfM) Hanns Eisler in Berlin no less than 75 per cent of students are from countries other than Germany. While the pandemic has made recorded and online auditions the only option for the majority of prospective students, both international and domestic, among the current student body it is international students who have often missed out the longest on in-person teaching.

One might wonder if the present situation would put off some international students from applying to institutions in Europe and the US, and whether conservatoires might be looking more to their domestic markets. But Juilliard’s associate dean for enrolment management, Kathleen Tesar, says this is not the case. She notes: ‘Since all our recruiting for fall 2021 enrolment was done remotely, we have actually increased our global reach. We anticipate roughly the same number of international students in the 2021–22 academic year.’ Nicola Peacock, deputy academic registrar at London’s Royal College of Music (RCM), says: ‘Enrolments of international students remained broadly stable in 2020–21 and we are hoping that will remain the case for 2021–22.’

Also in London, the Guildhall School’s head of registry services Stacey Balsdon reports receiving ‘a large number of applications’ from international students for music programmes this year, and says: ‘The desire to study music in the UK is not proving problematic in itself; it is the practicalities surrounding travel, immigration and financing that are.’ For EU nationals considering UK conservatoires, the effects of Brexit only add to the challenges of the pandemic, as Balsdon explains:

‘The UK’s decision to leave the EU means that students from the EU and other EEA and Swiss nationals wanting to study in the UK will need to pay international tuition fees rather than home (UK) fees. They are also not eligible for financial support from Student Finance England for courses starting in the 2021–22 academic year, and are required to obtain a visa.’

RCS and RCM have both seen decreases in applications from EU students for 2021–22, with an RCS spokesperson describing the decrease as ‘significant’. Putting numbers on the Brexit effect, Balsdon says that: ‘For 2020 entry, 17 per cent of applications to Guildhall’s music programmes were from applicants from EU/EEA/Swiss countries. For 2021 entry there has been an eight per cent increase in music applications overall, with nine per cent of applications from students from EU/EEA/Swiss countries.’

‘A lot of students weren’t coming back because they couldn’t afford to have their flats in Berlin’

With vaccine rollouts gathering pace in Europe and the US, and restrictions being relaxed in some countries, conservatoires such as RCS and Juilliard plan to have all students attend in person from the start of the 2021–22 year. But in the face of uncertainty about the progress of the pandemic, institutions are understandably being flexible in their approach.

‘In some cases,’ says Juilliard’s Tesar, ‘this flexibility will mean permitting international students to begin the academic year remotely, remaining in their home countries because of travel restrictions and/or difficulties in obtaining visas.’ In April 2021 a third of Juilliard’s international students were still fully remote, although some of the school’s Chinese students who remain in China have been able to access the school’s Tianjin campus for in-person ensemble sessions, alongside taking their New York classes remotely.

In January 2021 only 183 out of HfM Hanns Eisler’s 590 students were in Berlin having physical lessons. The conservatoire’s president Sarah Wedl-Wilson says: ‘One of the main reasons why many of our Asian students couldn’t come back was that there weren’t any flights from Beijing for a long time. And once flights started up again, the prices were astronomical. One student said they were going to have to pay €8,000 just to get to Berlin.’ She adds: ‘We have consulates which are being slow about giving visas, and some students have been unable to come for that reason.’ She also cites financial pressures on students’ parents, some of whom are freelance musicians and have seen their work dry up. ‘Many students coming to Berlin will normally have little side-jobs like waitressing or bar work, or selling programmes at concert halls and opera houses. With those jobs unavailable, and all the students’ concerts cancelled, it meant that a lot of students weren’t coming back because they couldn’t afford to have their flats in Berlin. The additional costs were too much.’

As well as delivering online teaching across multiple time zones, conservatoires have been contacting embassies and giving individual support to students with visa applications, setting up dedicated Covid-19 hardship funds, and arranging special study schemes for students still unable to travel and access face-to-face tuition.

‘We are aware of the stress of prolonged isolation and remote teaching and learning,’ says Tesar, ‘and we’re providing support to our students as needed.’

NEWS IN BRIEF

Violinist, five, awarded distinction in Grade 8 exam bit.ly/2PNDrCJTravis Wong Kai Xuan, a five-year-old Singaporean boy (right), has gained a distinction in his ABRSM Grade 8 exam. Kai Xuan, who started learning the violin when he was three years old and barely able to read or write, submitted his video to the ABRSM online portal. His mother attends every violin lesson with him and assists in his daily practice of at least an hour.

Jessie Montgomery appointed CSO composer-in-residence bit.ly/3h1fEKw US violinist and composer Jessie Montgomery has been appointed composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO). She will take up the three-year post on 1 July. Montgomery will write three new works for the CSO and curate MusicNOW, its annual contemporary music series. Montgomery is a former winner of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the ASCAP Foundation’s Leonard Bernstein Award.

Anne-Sophie Mutter to become president of German Cancer Aid bit.ly/33gZQvjViolinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is to become the next president of the German Cancer Aid charity. The German violinist’s first husband, Detlef Wunderlich, died of lung cancer in 1995. Speaking to RTL.de, Mutter said: ‘I actually found oncology to be downright medieval in the 1990s. A person is not a car that goes through the TÜV test. And back then this diagnosis was presented to me like a TÜV test certificate with a definite end date […] I still see a need for action in terms of communication skills between doctor and patient.’