Collaboration? Creating Interfaces in Music Education Systems
T
Ajankohtaista
He addressed collaboration as contrasting to cooperation. When cooperating, each partici-pant works in their own field, which makes cooperating easy to plan in advance. Collabo-ration, however, requires improvisational solutions and work outside the field of each participant. Lessing thus described clearly defined professional roles and competences as a condition and first step towards possible collaboration. Collaboration, he argued, is about integrating different identities and every new role is conditioned by the previous roles.
Lessing’s keynote was followed by a panel discussion comprising representatives from different contexts. This specific panel highlighted collaboration between music schools, research and teacher education. We found that having a panel immediately after a keynote was a good way of continuing the discussion.
As a member of the panel, Heidi Westerlund from the University of the Arts Helsinki spoke about the Finnish ArtsEqual research initiative, which addresses equality in arts education. She presented the “boundaries of responsibility” as a common major challenge for all the sub-studies within ArtsEqual. This means, for example, that we need to think about the inclusion of people with disabilities and older adults in music education. She emphasized cross-sectoral collaboration through social innovations that increase accessibil-ity. She argued that we are currently witnessing a moral turn and that we have to look horizontally across different fields in order to do socially responsible work.
Boundaries within higher music education were also discussed within the panel. For example, even though higher education is very specialised in Austria, graduates cross professional boundaries and work as musicians, schoolteachers, and music schoolteachers.
On top of the published symposium program, the organisers surprised the participants with 60-second pitches on research projects by a number of doctoral students from Aus-tria, Finland and Ireland. Finnish doctoral student Tuulia Tuovinen, for example, present-ed a pitch on children as collaborators in Finnish music schools and Hanna Backer Johnsen spoke of the political agency of children and the importance of listening to non-dominant voices in the music school context.
The first day ended with a concert featuring 26 pupils from different parts of Austria.
The occasion was the 40th anniversary conference of the Austrian music school associa-tion. The 26 pupils did not know each other prior to the association’s conference, but during its three days planned a concert, which they performed during the conference. The pupils were divided into 3 groups: a brass ensemble, a folk music ensemble, and a choir.
Each group performed independently and finished with a collaborative performance of folk songs from each region of Austria. The audience was also invited to participate by dancing.
Day Two—Challenging diversity
Three parallel round table sessions set the tenor for Day Two. These focused on talent, group tuition, and research on Art and Music Schools in the Nordic countries. All three authors of this report presented in the third round table session, together with Anders Rønningen from the Norwegian Council for Schools of Music and Performing Arts in Norway. Our session was attended mostly by leaders of Art and Music Schools in the Nordic countries, who engaged in discussions regarding what kind of research has been done, how it can be used, and how to bridge the gap between research and practice. A rich and varied set of 32 parallel presentations followed the round table sessions with themes illustrating the collaborative relationships between music schools and pupils, schools, communities, youth work, society and various inclusive challenges.
The main topic of the keynote presented by Stefan Gies, Chief Executive of the European Association of Conservatoires (AEC), was the significant work done by associa-tions such as AEC, the European Music School Union (EMU), and the European
Associa-Actual
tion for Music in Schools (EAS) among others, and the importance of cooperation and collaboration among associations in the European Union. One example he presented was how STEM education (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) was changed to STEAM education (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics) because of the activeness of several European associations that together claimed that arts are just as important as mathematics and technology. In his presentation he also brought up the European Commission’s November 2017 Communication on the creation of a European Education Area by 2025. He expressed how this was good news for European music schools since it highlighted how culture contributes to the creation of new jobs in the creative industries, prepares us to meet the needs of the digital world, and contributes to the creation of a European identity. Gies also offered examples of collaborations such as the AEC-SMS project (2017-2021) Creative Europe Network: Strengthening Music in Society. This project focuses on the role of higher music education institutions in society, diversity, identity, inclusiveness, entrepreneurship for musicians, mobility, innovative learning and teaching, and finally on teacher education in the digital era.
A vivid panel discussion focusing on the questions “What does music education mean in the 21st century?” and “How can we give access to cultural participation and to music education opportunities to as many people as possible?” ended the symposium. This panel was moderated by Michaela Hahn from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In the panel, the notion of differences and diversity in Europe challenged our thinking and imagination. Each European country has its own traditions and different ways of thinking and it is important to keep that in mind, for example, EAS comprises 29 countries. According to Isolde Malmberg, EAS is currently working with the following thematic fields: musical diversity, music as heritage, music teacher education, and sustain-able music teacher education. Philippe Delarun (EMU) also emphasised how it is impos-sible to imagine the same music education system working for all of Europe and how we therefore have to respect diversity. According to Delarun, music education in the 21st century will have something to do with “music first”. We interpreted this to mean that music itself is a powerful policy tool, and that the artistic component must be strong enough to engage and motivate policy makers and the public at large if one aims to address social issues via music and arts education. He also underlined the relevance of research that highlights the impact of music education. Anders Rønningen agreed that there are differences in approaches. He talked about a Nordic approach on educating children to have an opportunity to become professional musicians, while still attending to the basic human right of all children to express themselves through the arts. This means inclusion, not only into our music schools, but also through our music schools. Fulfilling this aim is only possible through strong collaboration between music schools, research and higher education and the willingness of these actors to change simultaneously.
Summing up—The future of collaboration in our hands
While the opening ceremony and the keynotes had collaboration as a starting point, a closer look at the program showed that only 25% of the paper presentations in the parallel sessions explicitly mentioned the words collaboration, collaborative, or interfaces in their titles. However, the majority did mention collaboration in their abstracts.
At the conclusion of the event, we were left with the conviction that bridging the gap between research and practice, initiating new collaborations, and thinking horizontally would be important steps in our joint efforts towards diverse and socially just music education within the contexts of music schools.
Change is dependent on the ability of the field to be sensitive to the perspectives of the pupils and professionals as well as to transcend boundaries. Or, as Peter Röbke from the
Ajankohtaista
University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna stated in his concluding words: “Collab-oration is dependent on common goals on the policy level, otherwise it will remain frag-ile.” Finally, when encountering difference, the question that arises for us as authors is: Is living with contradictions and tension the art of democracy, and thus also the core of music education?