Higher Music Education

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Tasmania observed a gender disparity among guitar students in Australian tertiary popular music programs. The study's data suggests approximately ninety percent of Australian tertiary popular music guitar students identify as male. Further research was conducted to investigate how this phenomena compares to communities located in Florida and if such disparities are anomalous or consistent with global trends in guitar Communities of Practice (CoPs). This paper presents both quantitative and qualitative data from the study conducted at the University of Tasmania. It also contains as further netnographic quantitative data collected from educators and online CoPs located in Florida, and global communities, to gain estimates of gender dispersion in these communities. The further data found a similar gender imbalance is present in online communities. However, the gender imbalance was found to be less pronounced in the private guitar tuition sector. Data collected from educators in the U.S.A, the U.K., and Australia revealed a 36.5% quota of female guitar students among the global sample. Data

La Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit (UAN) es una institución referente en Nayarit, tiene la mayor cobertura educativa en el estado con programas académicos de nivel medio superior, técnico y superior (UAN, 2018). En 2009 fue creado el programa académico de licenciatura en Música y mediante este trabajo se documenta su historia presente (Carbajal Vaca, 2020), perspectiva propuesta en un proyecto de mayor envergadura desarrollado en la Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes por la doctora Irma Susana Carbajal Vaca, el cual se orienta a documentar la historia presente de los programas de educación musical a nivel superior de diferentes estados en la República mexicana.

The conference CREATIVE IDENTITIES IN TRANSITION focuses on the learning cultures and curricula designs at higher music education institutions, the multifaceted ways of transition and the career trajectories and employability of musicians. Higher music education institutions aim at helping students to acquire skills and knowledge and to develop specific personal attributes to negotiate the initial stages of their careers as musicians and to attain employability and life-long learning. However, the learning cultures and practices of artistic valuation at music universities and conservatoires are hardly explored and employability is poorly defined and hard to measure, especially in the face of changing relations between study and work. The process of becoming a musician is thus not simply about sequentially passing through particular stages of development. Rather, it entails the negotiation of significant and complex rites of passage increasingly associated with a heightened responsibility for constructing one’s own career and identity. Moreover, transitions from study to working life are shaped by gender, race, class and sexuality and include dilemmas in weaving together established normative and personal meanings. As a result, career trajectories remain, in many cases, “permanently transitional”. However, musicians and artists have also established initiatives such as “Help Musicians UK”, “#MeToo”, “Time’s Up”, “We Have Voice” or “art but fair”. These initiatives encourage discussions around musical labour, fight discrimination and exposure to racism, sexism and homo-/transphobia and aim at bringing about social change within music labour markets and in broader society. At this conference, we will discuss these issues with regard to the changing roles of higher music education institutions and professions.

From an autoethnographic perspective as a performer, educator and scholar, I consider constructions and presentations of success, what it means to be a popular musician in the 21st century, and how these issues are dealt with in the higher popular music performance education institution where I work. This position paper explores success as construed in music education and popular music studies in relation to changing contexts and practices in popular music. While popular music has a growing presence in music education and the literature of the field, institutions, scholarly publications, and mainstream media infrequently and inadequately address trends in popular music practice such as the widespread adoption of portfolio careers. Under- and mis-representation of popular music’s canon and practices, and ideas of success thus threaten to under-value the majority of popular music and popular musicians, a problem that should be addressed in higher popular music performance education and across the music education profession. Drawing also on literature from music business and economics, I call music educators to challenge traditional approaches and assumptions, engaging critically with the present in order to prepare for the future.

Graduate employability is a growing concern for higher education. Many Arts graduates need to shape their work to meet personal and professional needs, and successful negotiation of this type of career requires resilience, a strong sense of identity, and adequate preparation. This paper reports findings from a collaborative study undertaken at four Australian higher education institutions. The study involved students in classical and contemporary music, music education, music technology, and writing. In this paper we report the impact of electronic portfolios on learner identity, drawing our evidence from survey and focus group interview data. As the learning process rather than the technological tool drove the study, the findings can inform curriculum and practice across higher education creative and performing Arts.

This article addresses questions about stability and variation in folk singing in relation
to different learning methods such as oral transmission from recordings, learning in live situations or from musical notation, and in folk singing studies within higher music edu­ cation (HME). A case study is presented where methods for audio analysis were used in order to examine the development of interpretation in recordings of contemporary folk singers. The singers learned the songs either by oral transmission from a living person, from a recording, or from a transcription. The study shows that singers learning by oral transmission proceeded from an initial mimicking that reproduced the source closely, to the presentation of versions holding both stable features and extensive variation of other features. Stable features included relative ‘phrase timing’, ‘voice timbre quality’, pro­nunciation and ‘rhythmising patterns’. Variation was found in features such as melody, micro­rhythm, micro­timing, intonation praxis, articulation, and ornamentation. The different learning methods are discussed in relation to teaching and learning in HME. By way of describing how musical material is both transferred as a certain singer’s version and further developed by the learner, the term ‘the singer’s imprint’ is introduced.

The Spanish educational system distinguishes at its peak two types of higher education, equivalent but with many notable differences. On the one hand, university education, and on the other, higher artistic education. The first includes Bachelor’s, Master and Ph.D. studies. The latter offers a higher degree (equivalent to a bachelor’s degree) and master’s studies. This Ordinance leaves higher music education in Spain at an impasse that has a negative impact on their autonomy, economic resources, perception of their students and society, promotion of research, and recognition of their teaching and research staff. These all have implications for student’s perception, motivation, and expectations. The current curricular design of higher education discriminates against artistic education. The motivation/expectations binomial has its correlation in the learning/performance binomial, and both are framed in
the institutional and educational context of learning. This work studies the perception and expectations of a group of Spanish students about the education system and the competencies that they will develop
concerning their professional life. The main results obtained indicate that the study plans have not met their expectations, being inflexible, which does not allow them to take an individualized training path based on their aptitudes. So, the perception becomes a conclusion, by being able to affirm that an active role of the student body and the professional sector is needed for the design and development of curricula.

Das Tätigkeitsverhältnis des Lehrauftrags ist im akademischen Lehrbetrieb in Deutschland weit verbreitet. Auch an Musikhochschulen und Instituten für Musik an Universitäten ist es gängige Praxis, einen hohen Anteil der Unterrichtsdeputate durch Lehraufträge abzudecken. Mit dieser Sachlage gehen verschiedene Missstände und strukturelle Probleme einher, die Gegenstand der vorliegenden Stellungnahme sind. Die vorliegende Stellungnahme setzt sich aus arbeitsrechtlicher, administrativer und berufspolitischer Perspektive mit den Rahmenbedingungen für Lehrauftragstätigkeiten auseinander, insbesondere bezogen auf die Fächer Musiktheorie und Gehörbildung, und leitet aus der derzeitigen Situation einige Handlungsnotwendigkeiten ab.

Claude V. Palisca (1921-2001) was a prominent American musicologist and music educator. He authored books and articles about Renaissance and Baroque music theory and developments in musicology, but is most widely known as the founder and first editor of the Norton Anthology of Western Music (NAWM) and coauthor of A History of Western Music, the two music history textbooks that are still in use in classrooms worldwide. In this article, we trace Palisca's first idea of the NAWM's structure, content, and purpose through his writings and activities between the 1950s and late 1970s. The central part among Palisca's activities in music education belongs to his organization of the Yale Seminar on Music Education, his seminar report, and the listening curriculum designed to instill more balance between performance and academic study in largely performance-oriented public school music programs. In his listening curriculum, Palisca argued for emphasis on understanding music through listening within the historical and theoretical context of the music work, an approach he would later pursue in the NAWM. Palisca hinted that a similar teaching "package" is needed for the undergraduate level, thus identifying the listening curriculum from his Yale Seminar report as the first glimmer of the future NAWM.

O presente trabalho é um relato de experiências pautado na análise de conversas formais e informais, acontecidas ao longo de dois anos, com alunos e egressos de cursos de formação superior em Música de quatro Universidades no estado de Minas Gerais/Brasil. Os temas debatidos se dividem em: 1) identidades e atuações profissionais dos músicos, independente de suas formações como bacharéis ou licenciados, no âmbito da música e do ensino; 2) descrições dos cursos de Música nas Universidades e breves relações entre a estrutura dos cursos e o impacto nas atuações profissionais; 3) a atuação dos docentes superiores e suas influências nas tomadas de decisão profissional dos alunos e egressos. Apresentam-se discussões sobre os conceitos de Educador Musical e Professor de Música, bem como categorizações informais sobre o perfil dos docentes de ensino superior, baseados numa fundamentação da problematização e da educação dialógica e reflexiva. Para além de conclusões de teoria aprofundada, a experiência traz à tona as possibilidades de sistematização e aprendizado com as conversas formais e informais a respeito de qualquer tema, sendo o próprio espaço da conversa um espaço de trocas e interações no qual as pessoas se constroem.

Existe una brecha entre saber disciplinar y saber pedagógico que dificulta la comprensión de elementos de educabilidad y enseñabilidad relacionados con áreas específicas en educación superior. En el caso particular de la improvisación musical, la tensión entre teoría y práctica ha generado dificultades para comprender su enseñabilidad, puesto que las concepciones tradicionales sobre el aprendizaje de la improvisación han llevado al desarrollo de métodos que se reducen a la aplicación de conceptos en la práctica instrumental, sin tomar en cuenta las necesidades de aprendizaje de los estudiantes y su contexto. En consecuencia, la educabilidad de la improvisación se ha malinterpretado hasta el punto que se afirma que no se puede aprender a improvisar, o que este aprendizaje depende del talento innato de los estudiantes. Esta situación ha originado vacíos de conocimiento pedagógico que dificultan la práctica docente universitaria al interior de los programas profesionales de música, en relación con procesos de creación como la improvisación musical, lo que tiene un impacto negativo en el desempeño profesional de los egresados.

Having been asked to respond to Action Ideal VIII by the Mayday Group, concerning technology and its impacts on music education, what follows are some observations and reflections from my experiences teaching undergraduate music and music technology degrees in the UK. I put forward the idea that Post-Digital music aesthetics reflect an emergent sensibility in contemporary music cultures, and this represents an opportunity for music educators to reconfigure and strengthen their pedagogical approaches. By recognizing the legitimacy of new and varied forms of musicianship, and acknowledging the ways in which our subject area continues to grow in its range of practices and necessary literacies, strategies can be developed to support a music student experience that is cohesive, inclusive, hybridized, meaningful and useful.

Elite classical music programs continue to focus teaching in Western Classical traditions where the emphasis is on technical virtuosity in instrumental or vocal performance. In this paper we discuss group activities and assessments used in two Creative Arts disciplines (Performance and Journalism), at an Australian regional university, as examples of subjects which provide ‘real world’ experience in order to promote resilience and tenacity in students. We incorporate narratives collected from students in performance and journalism to illustrate the value of recreating the complex division of labour of real world art practice, famously described by Becker (1982), as part of the musical learning experience. The paper concludes with reflections on how collaborative assessments/teaching activities can be developed to ensure the delivery of resilience and tenacity as a threshold learning outcome in a classical music course.

The increasing participation rate in higher education has raised its own issues, such as how to fund the growth while retaining the quality of education. In Finland, it has been argued that the tuition-free higher education policy increases equality. On the other hand, in the United Kingdom, establishing a system of tuition fees supported by an income-contingent loan system for students has also been argued to increase equality. In Australia, students also face high tuition fees for higher education, as well as a support system focused on domestic students. In addition to tuition fees, entrance examinations also play a crucial part in higher education systems. In order to examine inequalities in higher education from the students’ point of view, tuition fees are scrutinised in connection with equality, and entrance examinations in relation to cultural reproduction. Comparing examples of higher music education institutions in Finland, the United Kingdom, and Australia shows that there are large differences between the tuition fees charged for domestic and international students, as well as between countries. Entrance examinations in higher music education are similar in these countries, but may include inequalities based on long traditions in the field of music, especially in classical music. By revealing misconceptions about equity in higher education, it is possible to have a critical debate about the role of tuition fee systems as they are connected with the economics of higher education, and about entrance examinations as reproducing social class inequalities. This discussion may contribute to the redefinition and reformation of more equitable and just education systems, and promote equality in general in society.

The work and training of professional musicians follow different paths, since music, as a social practice, is conceived from practical knowledge - from know-how. The career in music is characterized by multiple roles, fragmented work and, often, unstable. This reality favors the construction of different professional identities for graduates in higher education in music. This study investigates the influence of higher education in the formation of these identities among bachelors that work in education market. It was designed taking into account data from university education and professional experience of graduates from four public higher education institutions in Southeastern Brazil: University of São Paulo (USP), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Faculty of Music of Espírito Santo (FAMES). The documents for analysis were collected on the HEIs websites - pedagogical projects, syllabuses, curriculum grades - and online questionnaires applied to 42 graduates in these institutions. The analysis was based on the analytical categories that constitute the practice equation (BOURDIEU, 2008): [(habitus) (capital)] + field = practice. This analytical framework allowed to locate professional and academic habitus, highlighting the disparities between higher education and the realities of the labor market in music. Three main discussions emerged from the analysis: 1) About career models in music, which produce multisubjects acting on unforeseen trajectories. 2) About the models of curricular formation, and the possibilities offered by the institutions, favoring the reproduction of colonialist models or allowing other formations. 3) How graduates act in the market of teaching and how is the assumption of the identities of music teacher and music educator. The discussions pointed out: the gaps between university education and the realities experienced in the labor market in music; the needs of curricular restructuring and the fundamental role of repositioning of teachers and students in higher education; the work in the music teaching market only as part of the process of building professional identities, not necessarily determining in the construction of the subjects, since many still only act in it as a form of income complementation; the possibility of understanding higher education in music as a higher musical educ(ACTION), as a broad and liberating formative process.
Key words: Music Bachelor degree. Higher Music Education. Professional Identity. Curriculum as practice. Career in Music.

In this study we investigated the visions of 12 music teacher educators who teach pedagogical courses called instrumental pedagogy and classroom music pedagogy in three music academies in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The data were collected through individual, semi structured qualitative interviews. Drawing on Hammerness’ concept of teachers’ vision we concentrated on the educators’ visions of good music pedagogy teaching, an ideal graduate, and visions of their subject as a whole as well as how those visions can be extended to denote some characteristics of the teaching traditions at play. The results indicated that visions were personal and not necessarily consistent between educators or across institutions. Rather, they were strongly related to, steered, and limited by established teaching traditions. We suggest that vision might constitute a functional concept in music teacher educators’ reflections on their work and that clear program visions should be formulated in music teache...

La legislación española distingue entre la formación universitaria y la formación artística superior, lo que aboca a la educación superior musical en España a un impasse que repercute negativamente en su autonomía, recursos económicos, recepción social, fomento de la investigación y reconocimiento de su personal docente e investigador.
Todo esto tiene implicaciones para la percepción, motivación y expectativas de los estudiantes. El binomio motivación/expectativas tiene su correlación en el binomio aprendizaje/desempeño, y ambos se enmarcan en el contexto institucional y educativo del aprendizaje. Este trabajo estudia la percepción y expectativas del alumnado del Conservatorio Superior de Música de Valencia sobre el sistema educativo y las competencias que desarrollarán en su vida profesional. Los principales resultados obtenidos indican que los planes de estudio no han cumplido con sus expectativas, por lo que no permiten emprender un itinerario formativo individualizado en función de las
aptitudes. Entonces, la percepción se convierte en una conclusión, al poder afirmar que se necesita un papel activo del alumnado y del sector profesional para el diseño y desarrollo de los planes de estudio.

A presente pesquisa buscou compreender a relação entre a formação superior de egressos do curso de Bacharelado em Música da Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB) e sua inserção e atuação profissional no mercado de trabalho da cidade de João Pessoa, a partir das percepções dos mesmos. Para tanto, realizamos uma pesquisa qualitativa com base em entrevistas, com dez dentre os 21 alunos que se adequavam aos critérios de seleção – instrumentistas egressos do curso de Bacharelado nos anos de 2010 e 2011, que atuavam profissionalmente na cidade de João Pessoa. Como instrumento de coleta de dados, foram realizadas entrevistas semi-estruturadas, buscando conhecer a experiência dos egressos no curso e no mercado de trabalho, identificar as representações sociais recorrentes nos discursos e compreender como o currículo proposto pelo curso contribuiu para o ingresso do profissional no mercado de trabalho. A análise crítica dos relatos foi realizada sob o olhar da Teoria das Representações Sociais e de estudos da área de Educação Musical e áreas afins que mostraram ter relação com o tema escolhido e os dados coletados. Neste sentido, discutimos como foi estabelecida a relação dos egressos com a música e como a representação do papel social do artista pode ser reconhecida no apoio familiar (ou a falta dele) à opção pela profissão de músico. A partir dos dados obtidos e da análise bibliográfica e documental, pudemos constatar a influência do Modelo Conservatorial de Ensino no currículo do curso em questão, embora tenha sofrido adaptações. Além disso, tecemos considerações acerca das percepções e expectativas dos egressos sobre a sua formação, refletindo sobre possíveis inovações e adaptações no currículo. A dicotomia músico versus professor também foi enfatizada, já que a docência apareceu nos discursos como uma opção profissional do bacharel e, na prática, essas duas possibilidades de atuação aparecem como atividades complementares. Concluímos, assim, que a proposta do curso não está devidamente articulada à realidade do mercado de trabalho atual, especialmente em relação à cidade de João Pessoa.

This text stems from documentary analysis of the content of the official curriculum and from questionnaires taken by former graduates of four bachelor's degree programs in music offered in higher education institutions in the Southeastern region of Brazil. Following the analysis, I propose reflections on the following: the concept of curriculum as a practice and on the policies for curricular flexibilization; the ideas of music and society that rule the analyzed curricula and how these ideas relate to the comprehension of professional training in music; the realities and possibilities of action for (de)colonial thought present in the formation of the curricula; and finally, the agency of the subjects who set the curricula in action. Such reflections reveal the maintenance of Eurocentric colonial values in the training of graduates, as well as an openness to other career paths. Furthermore, they establish higher music education as a field of possibility for epistemic magnification, supported by curricular flexibilization and by political projects of university expansion, in addition to becoming a field of action to social prophylaxis. Keywords: Higher music education; curriculum as practice; coloniality and de-coloniality; curricular flexibilization in Brazil; bachelor's degree in music he proposition to reflect on higher music (educ)ACTION stems from a linguistic provocation that aims to reveal the dimension of action, practice, and praxis within the processes of teaching-learning in higher education in music. 2 This play on words takes education in its "problematizing" dimension by way of a "preoccupation with people as beings in the world and with the world; preoccupation with what and how they are 'being'" (Freire 2015, 100). The problematizations presented herein depart from the notion that music, as a social and relational practice, occupies any spaces in a multitude of actions and T

Making sense of musicians’ professional learning pathways is of crucial importance to understanding their career progressions, their routes into creative employment, and the relevance of various policies to their professional lives. However, this is a far cry from understanding how critical reflection catalyzes diverse learning routes, especially when considering evidence originating from postgraduate musicians’ own accounts of their journeys into job creation. In this study, we invited five postgraduate classical musicians who were invested in professional learning through performance programs in higher education to contribute these types of personal perspectives. The article explores the value of postgraduate musicians’ own accounts of their journeys and illustrates how a more nuanced understanding of them can be arrived at through the use of visual-based tools, for example, Rivers of Musical Experience and Dixit Cards. This constructivist intervention prompted both group and indi...

Values and meanings important for the character development of future professional musician are the core of professional music education. The relevance of the study is related to the need to introduce an axiological approach to higher music and pedagogical education, which involves the values-based meaning of the educational process. The paper is based on the findings of foreign and Ukrainian scientists investigating the problem of axiological approach application in the theory and practical methods of higher education. The research uses the method of experiment, which experimentally proves the effectiveness of the proposed axiologically filled pedagogical technology, containing innovative methods of music education, as well as clarifies the criteria, indicators of levels of axiological competence of students. The peculiarities of the principles of axiological education, which should be implemented in the content of training musicians and music teachers, are revealed. The axiological competence of students is interpreted as an integrated personal quality of future musicians and music teachers, which reflects the level of emotional and values-based attitude, understanding and subjective comprehension of spiritual, personal and professional values in music. The analysis of methodological integration of axiological, systemic, culturological approaches, which will allow to deepen and diversify the structural and semantic characteristics of the axiologic sphere of higher institutions of music and music-pedagogical education, seems promising.

Performance practices and composing methods are increasingly being integrated into holistic musical practices today. Furthermore, the sources of musical inspiration accessible to new generations of music students are global in origin and stylistically egalitarian. These young music artists are globally connected, collaborative and social, inquisitive and creative, customizers and experimenters, and are determined with a sense of urgency. At the same time, the landscape of professional music careers that these young music artists will enter has been changing radically and rapidly. The era of the predetermined , narrowly specialized music careers is ending. This raises key questions for the design of music curricula today, including: What is the content of an appropriate core curriculum in music now? How can we create flexible learning pathways that enable students to acquire individually designed skillsets to support unique and often unpredictable, career goals? How can we best prepare these students to be global artistic citizens? How can we maintain high standards of quality in an environment of great musical and cultural diversity? This presentation will explore such topics and describe a new approach to the design of music curricula underway now in The Herb Alpert School of Music at California Institute of the Arts.

A philosophical statement about music higher education being a collective enterprise among a community of artists dedicated to spontaneous emergence and infinite possibilities. This statement is related to the author's work at The Herb Alpert School of Music at California Institute of the Arts and its approach to its music curriculum.

Career preparation has gained increasing prominence in higher music education as governments and students alike demand a stronger focus on workplace readiness. While the existing graduate metrics work well for professions which feature traditional, full-time jobs, the potential for such a linear career path is limited for graduate musicians by fierce competition for work and a labor market in which precarious work is the norm. Music graduates tend to experience a career-long portfolio of part-time, casual, and contract-based work within and outside the music industry. This article reports on an innovative internship program that engaged student musicians in an in-curricular intervention related to their career thinking. The program and its assessments purposefully placed students into authentic learning contexts where their musical skills and their understanding of being a professional were challenged and expanded. Using the examples of scaffolded assessment tasks including an ePortfolio and a presentation of on-the-job learning, the article highlights students' reflections on how the internship engaged their career thinking and how the ePortfolio process helped them to curate that thinking. Students reported that the combination of an ePortfolio and scaffolded career thinking assessments enabled them to realize the relevance of their learning tasks and to create clearer career connections. Implications for the use of ePortfolios within WIL (work integrated learning) are discussed.

Elite classical music programs continue to focus teaching in Western Classical traditions where the emphasis is on technical virtuosity in instrumental or vocal performance. In this paper we discuss group activities and assessments used in two Creative Arts disciplines (Performance and Journalism), at an Australian regional university, as examples of subjects which provide ‘real world’ experience in order to promote resilience and tenacity in students. We incorporate narratives collected from students in performance and journalism to illustrate the value of recreating the complex division of labour of real world art practice, famously described by Becker (1982), as part of the musical learning experience. The paper concludes with reflections on how collaborative assessments/teaching activities can be developed to ensure the delivery of resilience and tenacity as a threshold learning outcome in a classical music course.

This chapter explores university–community partnerships as a means of expanding professionalism in higher arts education. Adopting a relational approach to education, through partnership spaces, allows universities to plan and teach for uncertain times and “supercomplexity”. University–community partnerships often act as a key feature of the overall societal and educational missions of universities. Applying this stance to higher arts education, then, dealing with the conversations and tensions that arise from real-world learning partnerships is fundamental to ongoing professional development and professional identity formation. The discussion and “encounters in the real world” seek to inform key questions that relate to university–community partnership’s impact on expanding professionalism in relational terms, how they inform and shape identities, the ethical considerations required within such “disruptions”, and the role of reflexivity to foster critical engagement. The value of such reflexive practice is highlighted in one particular study carried out with student arts educators in an after-school music project.

Making sense of musicians’ professional learning pathways is of crucial importance to understanding their career progressions, their routes into creative employment, and the relevance of various policies to their professional lives. However, this is a far cry from understanding how critical reflection catalyses diverse learning routes, especially when considering evidence originating from postgraduate musicians’ own accounts of their journeys into job creation. In this study, we invited 5 postgraduate classical musicians who were invested in professional learning through performance programmes in higher education to contribute these types of personal perspectives. The paper explores the value of postgraduate musicians’ own accounts of their journeys, and illustrates how a more nuanced understanding of them can be arrived at through the use of visual-based tools, e.g., Rivers of Musical Experience and Dixit Cards. This constructivist intervention prompted both group and individual critical reflections, as well as sense-making processes that enabled the participants to become more informed about the (typically overlooked or neglected) critical incidents that differently catalyse professional learning pathways. All of the participants articulated sociocultural influences that were situated along historical, present, and future points of departure and arrival, helping them to create meaning and understanding of themselves and their (at times unsettling) professional learning pathways. From the ensuing thematic analyses, we identified a commonality of themes across life phases with three key influential groups of people (parents, peers, and professionals) that strongly affected their professional learning pathways and learner identity-construction. The results indicate that the relationships between these phases and people are complex. The research illuminates the previously unexplored connection between the meaning-making trajectories that are instantiated through critical reflection, and adds to our understanding of the development of musicians’ professional learning pathways and learner identities.

Graduate employability is a growing concern for higher education. Many Arts graduates need to shape their work to meet personal and professional needs, and successful negotiation of this type of career requires resilience, a strong sense of identity, and adequate preparation. This paper reports findings from a collaborative study undertaken at four Australian higher education institutions. The study involved students in classical and contemporary music, music education, music technology, and writing. In this paper we report the impact of electronic portfolios on learner identity, drawing our evidence from survey and focus group interview data. As the learning process rather than the technological tool drove the study, the findings can inform curriculum and practice across higher education creative and performing Arts.

This present article reports on the survey study that examined the pedagogical thinking of teachers at the Sibelius Academy. Responses to questions related to the teachers’
perceptions of good teaching, the preconditions of good teaching, what it means to be a good teacher, and professional development are reported.
The study is positioned within the fields of research of university pedagogy and pedagogical thinking. The theoretical framework consists of earlier studies on good teaching, in particular Karen Hammerness’ studies on teachers’ vision, entailing teachers’ images of ideal practice, a point of departure that enables a holistic understanding of teaching.
The results suggest that teachers at the Sibelius Academy underline subject knowledge as the most important quality of a good teacher. The teachers also consider subject
knowledge as a primary precondition for good teaching and a strength in their own professionalism. The teachers’ visions of good teaching reflect a constructivist conception
of learning. The understanding of learning is student centred, the student is perceived as an active agent in learning, and the relationship between the teacher and student is considered to be democratic. These results challenge earlier studies which suggest that music teaching in higher education is still strongly based upon the master-apprenticeship tradition.

Policy changes and higher education reforms challenge performing musician programmes across Europe. The academisation of arts education means that classical performance programmes are now marked by strong expectations of research paths, publications, and the standardisation of courses, grades and positions. Drawing on interviews with ten teachers and leaders within the field of higher music education, this article discusses notions of mandate, knowledge and research in classical performance music education in Norway. Against the backdrop of academisation, the aim of this article is to illuminate central tensions and negotiations concerning mandate, knowledge and research within higher music education. The problem concerns issues of who should be judged as qualified and who should have the authority to speak on behalf of the performing music expertise community. The study is part of the larger study Discourses of Academisation and the Music Profession in Higher Music Education (DAPHM...

A chapter by John O'Flynn that evaluates The Fidelio Trio artist residency and chamber music festivals at St Patrick's College in Dublin (a teacher education and liberal arts college), discussed in the broader context of artist residencies and cultural policy.  Part of the book co-edited by John Buckley and John O'Flynn, published by Peter Lang.

While music education research has examined facets of inter-arts collaborations at professional level, there is little on inter-arts collaborations among students of different arts departments in the framework of common university courses.
This article explores aspects of the learning of university visual art students and music students undertaking the course ‘Inter-Artistic Creative Thinking’, which concentrates on the stirrings and transformations of the role of the individual artist-student that are inexorably set in motion when learning occurs within an
inter-arts collaborative environment. Topics addressed include artistic reciprocity through practical socialization and practice to ‘make the familiar strange’, inter-artistic creativity through sonic engagement, and ways to facilitate novel musical, visual and educational experiences and outcomes for both visual art and music university students beyond superimposed institutionalized specialisms.