The Music School

Being a Dean of Fine Arts, and I often feel this is my calling in life at least for now, involves leading the arts in some sort of strategic direction. Rather than simply reacting to trends taking place in the arts world, it is part of our responsibility to project them and demonstrate progress in some sort of way. But in music this is challenging at best due to the canon of great literature from the past that exists to be performed over and over. For some reason, perhaps due to training or preference, visual art and theatre tend to move forward while continuing to respect the traditions from the past. Picasso, for example, was an excellent painter in an old model, with a flair for naturalism and ultimately expressionism not unlike the masters from the past. Yet he did not stop there, insisting on new approaches to art that made him one of great artists that continues to be studied.

In music, however, we have become mired in music from the past. This is mostly due to music from the past being truly masterful and meaningful, containing great expression and emotional content, not to mention craft and beauty. One cannot help but be moved by a Brahms symphony or gripped by Handel's Messiah or touched by Bach's Cello Suites or charged by a Mahler symphony or shocked by a Stravinsky ballet. Having spent my life studying, performing, and loving music from the past, it is not easy to embrace a newer model. Not unlike a reader who loves Shakespeare, Dickens, and Hugo but cannot seem to find merit in Doctorow, Roth, or Franzen, many academically trained musicians have fallen into a trap of only allowing art music from the past govern their entire personal emotional domicile of musical expression.

While it makes perfect sense to emphasize art music in academic music training, it does not serve the greater cause of music's need to have a broad impact on the individual and on the collective. It does, however, serve the less than 3% of the population who prefer past art music over the vast sea of music styles that can be found in contemporary culture. This may sound as though I am an advocate for abandonment of an art music based curriculum, but in point of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Art music has withstood the test of time for a good reason--it is great music worthy of study and worthy of being at the forefront of music performances in a multitude of settings. Music by Beethoven deserves its rightful place in the curriculum regardless of what current media and market demands are saying.

What I do subscribe to for music schools is an eclectic curriculum that encourages and develops young musicians for all styles and all genres of music and music performance. Let us give students the tools to use to build popular music, art music, film music, world music, hip-hop, jazz, experimental, strange, beautiful, chamber, orchestral, band, children's music, church music, opera, theatre, and secular music. I dream of the music school that encourages and supports all levels and types of music making. A music school that contributes broadly to society and recognizes the inherent value of music of all types, shapes, and sizes. A music school that has found a successful methodology to prepare students for the enormous and varied world of music. A music school that presents the glorious past that helps shape the future, and a school where individual excellence leads to success in solo and corporate performance. A school where teaching children music is valued equally with performing on an opera stage. A school where composing a country western song is as meaningful as composing a symphony and where playing with a rock band is embraced alongside playing with an orchestra. A school where singing an old hymn is accepted the same as singing a new chorus.

Can such a school exist? Not without a lot of work and not without letting go of biases. But I believe it is possible and I believe it is happening.