Under the spotlight

This month, the future of UK conservatoire education will be discussed at a London conference. How can educators best help their students to become 21st-century musicians?

News and events from around the world this month

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The RWCMD Symphony Orchestra performs in ‘Orchestradventure!’, an outreach project based in Wales

PETER WILLIAMS

Against a backdrop of Covid, the climate crisis and Brexit challenges, and the impact of global social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, conservatoires in the UK are realising they must do more to respond to societal and industry changes. In December, conservatoire and industry representatives will come together at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama for a one-day conference to discuss the implications of a conceptual paper, ‘Musicians as “Makers in Society”’ (bit.ly/3BdMZsd) published in August in Frontiers in Psychology: Performance Science. The paper calls for a paradigm shift in conservatoires’ teaching priorities to enable students to become ‘makers in society’. Musicians, it argues, should have creative ownership of their output, and not merely be interpreters of canonic notated repertoire; they should be curators of their performance and be able to explore diverse settings and contemporary contexts; and their music should be both socially relevant and interactively engaging for audiences.

‘Conservatoires have been working at change for a long time, but a lot of that work has been about adding aspects into curricula,’ says Helena Gaunt, principal of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) and one of the paper’s lead authors. ‘We now have to make a shift in the fundamentals of how we think about what it is to be a musician. It’s a move from saying, “There’s a craft and you just need to learn it, and then we’ll start adding in some other elements,” to saying: “The nature of the craft is connected to this whole idea of making in society.”’

While acknowledging that conservatoires can find it difficult to move fast, Gaunt thinks the sector appreciates the sense of urgency about making the kind of shift she outlines. For Diana Salazar, director of programmes at London’s Royal College of Music, this has only been sharpened by the experience of Covid. ‘There is a need for versatility today,’ she says. ‘Musicians must be resilient, flexible and adaptable, and be able to see themselves as makers, with the capacity to create new, imaginative work.’ Students and staff shouldn’t see a more holistic way of thinking about musicians as somehow a threat to the quality of musical training offered by conservatoires, adds Salazar. ‘We’re not going to compromise on the technical expertise, the musicianship and artistry,’ she says. ‘What we’re going to do is enhance and expand all that, make it even more versatile, and enrich it with a deep understanding of being a musician in society.’

Employers who want versatile graduate performers with an exploratory mindset need conservatoires to embrace this change fully. Linda Begbie, development director of Manchester Collective, an ensemble that has built a reputation for pushing boundaries in its programming, cross-arts collaborations and audience interaction, says: ‘My experience is that some of the people trying to lead creative change come up against huge resistance within the conservatoire itself. It feels like there is good practice happening, but it’s not fully embedded in the culture of the institution. When we go into conservatoires to do a project, we find that some students are open-minded and quick to embrace a different way of working, but others are incredibly inhibited.’ She cites a dominant orchestral model within conservatoires as well as the traditional guru model of one-to-one instrumental teaching as two factors that can hold back progress.

‘A conservatoire education has to embrace the whole person, the human and social aspects of being a musician’ – Helena Gaunt, principal, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

So how should conservatoire teaching adapt to help musicians become ‘makers in society’? Gaunt points to three principles driving change at the RWCMD, the first being a push to assess students in the real world rather than behind closed doors.

‘The performance that is assessed has to be meaningful,’ she says. A second principle is developing small-ensemble work, in recognition of the wider industry potential for more flexible small ensembles.

And a third principle is opening up the collaborative, interdisciplinary opportunities for students, which is something a college of music and drama is in prime position to provide.

Begbie calls for a change in mindset from the start of a student’s conservatoire journey, and also a shift away from a prescriptive approach to instrumental teaching. She thinks the sector could learn from the foundation year that many visual arts students take before, or as part of, their undergraduate programme. ‘That’s very much about encouraging creative and critical thinking,’ she says. ‘Young musicians should be given the space to explore why they want to play music, and what aspects of music making are interesting to them.’

What will a fresh approach to conservatoire education mean for a young string player whose sole ambition is to be an international concert soloist, and who might not harbour any special aspiration to be a ‘maker in society’? ‘I think it enables that player to have a much stronger sense of ownership of their musicianship and who they are,’ says Gaunt. ‘The best soloists in the world have a very strong sense of who they are, and their artistic personality shines through. But there are also people in the concert world with amazing playing ability, but who they are and what they’re saying through their playing is less clear. A conservatoire education has to embrace the whole person, the human and social aspects of being a musician, as well as the brilliance of being able to play a great concerto.’

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