Royal Academy of Music
Submission to the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (1996)
SECTION 1: Definition and Purposes of Higher Education
1. What should be the aims and purposes of higher education over the next twenty years?
1.1For the conservatoire sector in general and the Royal Academy of Music in particular, there are two main aims: first, to provide training and education in all facets of main-stream classical music performance to the highest international standard; second, to react to and, if possible, anticipate major changes in music performance and composition to give our graduates the best possible chances for employment as professional musicians.
1.2Contrary to received opinion, the music profession in Great Britain is not diminishing - it is growing; but it is also becoming more diverse. Graduates need to be prepared for jobs in well-established branches of the profession (such as symphony orchestras and solo concert work) as well as for the fast-developing areas of free-lance studio work, electronic media, film and commerical music, as well as period performance.
1.3The radical reduction in the number of funded places in conservatoires over the past ten years means that institutions are dangerously close to the critical mass needed to sustain the diverse training which the profession demands.
2. What features are, or should be, distinctive of higher education as opposed to other levels or forms of education or training?
2.1For conservatoires, there is little distinction between vocational and non-vocational higher and further education, since all training is essentially vocational and pre-professional, that is, sharply focussed on employment prospects. Like university music students, those at conservatoires must also learn something of music history, theory and aesthetics but, unlike universities, this aspect of education is designed to support and enhance practical performance. Indeed, new B.Mus. courses within the conservatoires are showing how traditional academic studies can help inform intuitive performance.
SECTION 2: Teaching and Research within Higher Education
3. What forms of higher education provision will students need access to over the next 20 years?
3.1The individual lesson in which master (teacher) imparts skills and knowledge to apprentice (student) is widely regarded as the single-most important aspect of conservatoire training. It is the only effective way to achieve the highest levels of performance, given the wide range of artistic, technical and cultural knowledge essential for success. However, most British conservatoires now offer a variety of class-based activities, including seminars, performance workshops and lectures, to support individual lessons. The typical mode of delivery is the degree course. Four years of full-time undergraduate study plus one or two years postgraduate training are generally regarded as the minimum required for professional musicians. In many European conservatoires undergraduate courses run for six years.
3.2Because orchestral and chamber music training can only be achieved in groups, distance learning in not applicable to conservatoires.
Work-based learning is, however, invaluable, especially for students at the London conservatoires where employment opportunities are plentiful. The Academy has work-study agreements with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra; it also maintains a Concerts Office which manages outside bookings for current students in an increasingly diverse market.
3.3In British conservatoires postgraduate and advanced courses have essentially provided a continuation of undergraduate training to fully professional standards. Some institutions, including the Royal Academy of Music, have introduced and will continue to develop masters degrees which combine high-level performance training with scholarly writing and research skills. The aim of such programmes is to produce musicians who can advocate and advance the art of music both practically and intellectually.
3.4Higher degrees in music (such as the Doctor of Musical Arts) are not at present generally offered by European conservatoires, though they are common in the United States where such degrees are taken mainly by those intending to become teachers in higher education. Since the mission of the Royal Academy of Music is not primarily to train pedagogues, we have no immediate plans to introduce a DMA, though there is evidently a demand for such degrees from students from the Far East. If the recruitment of non-EU overseas students remains a funding imperative, then the DMA is likely to be introduced in this country.
4. What knowledge, skills and aptitudes will those leaving higher education need over the next 20 years and how can these be best delivered?
4.1The Royal Academy of Music introduced the B.Mus.
Performance degree in 1991. A University of London degree offered in association with King's College London (the first of its kind in Britain and now widely imitated), its purpose is to provide high-level performers with contextual skills and knowledge of music and the humanities in general. Students intending to become professional musicians acquire enough transferable, general skills so that should they, through incapacity or choice, not become professional performers, they will have still had sufficient training and knowledge to be qualified for a range of related employment. With the B.Mus. and other degrees, the Academy is therefore seeking to maintain a balance between vocational training in music, related and transferable skills, and a broader understanding of the art of music.
5. How can effective teaching and learning be identified and how should they be encouraged?
5.1In the conservatoire sector, the most effective and efficient forms of teaching are those which best prepare graduates for employment as professional musicians. Therefore, the curriculum of the Royal Academy of Music is designed to reflect the marketplace. For example, methods of assessment approximate professional auditions; teaching is continually updated and adjusted to reflect changing repertoire demands; most members of the professional staff are themselves leading professionals who can provide more or less instantaneous feedback. Awareness of the marketplace is also a central consideration in orchestral strategy, outside concert opportunities, selection of ensemble repertoire in all departments, choice of conductors and adjudicators as well as courses in professional preparation, career options and business studies.
5.2Conservatoires have exploited and will continue to benefit from developments in communication technology, especially computer-assisted learning, composing, and music processing. The Academy has recently opened an Apple Mac computer suite and a studio for advanced technology.
5.3At the Academy, cross-institutional collaboration produced the new B.Mus. Performance degree in association with King's College London: the Academy draws its humanities and sciences provision from the specialist departments of King's (for example, languages, literature and acoustics) as well as advanced-level academic courses in music, which are only available in university music departments. Such collaboration between institutions with complementary programmes and facilities may prove to be more effective than collaboration between similar institutions. An element of competition (in recruiting students and staff) is an effective way to assure efficiency and to maintain quality.
6. What is the place of scholarship (as opposed to teaching and research) in higher education?
6.1In conservatoires, teaching, scholarship and research are inextricably linked; research at the coal-face and the acquisition of new facts help to inform and renew teaching. The HEFCE Research Assessment Exercise guidelines for music departments and conservatoires acknowledge that professional quality performance is `research equivalent'. For instance, stylistically informed performance or special studies of performance traditions should be regarded as an intellectual activity analogous to scholarship, in which the results of one's research are demonstrated through performance rather than in books and articles.
7. How can the standards of degrees and other higher education qualifications be assured and maintained?
7.1In the conservatoire sector degree results and national qualifications matter less than our graduates' success in finding positions in top orchestras, opera houses, favourable newspaper reviews of recitals and concerts, winning international competitions, acclaimed recordings and so forth. Therefore, standards will continue to be maintained by established quality control mechanisms within institutions and by the ever increasing expectations of what constitutes professional level performance in the international marketplace.
8. What proportion of higher education resources is it reasonable to use to verify standards of awards and the quality of provision?
8.1We believe that in the conservatoire sector the proportion of resources used to verify standards should be kept to a minimum. All major conservatoires aim to train students to the highest international standard. Accordingly, rigorous audition procedures assure that only the most talented musicians are admitted; they are taught in a highly competitive environment by professionals and are assessed against internationally accepted criteria for excellence in performance.
9. How should research carried out in higher education institutions fit with the wider spectrum of research undertaken in the UK?
See 6, above.
10. How should public funding for research in higher education institutions be distributed?
10.1Conservatoires have not been eligible to receive R-income, though some of them have made submissions to the Funding Council's 1996 Research Assessment Exercise. RAE guidelines for Music now recognise performance as `research equivalent', which should be interpreted to mean that musical performance is an intellectual activity which may include elements of originality, exploration, and the practical application of new knowledge.
10.2Advances in research depend on brain power, resources and the freedom to think. An undesirable effect of concentrating research resources in a few institutions is that the total number of researchers will be reduced - that is, insights will be lost, sources left undiscovered and theories untested. Dispersing resources across many centres is probably a better way to maintain a broad research base than concentrating them in a few centres of excellence which, however well funded, cannot guarantee results.
10.3Now that the Funding Council has accepted music composition and performance as `research equivalent', it is hoped that conservatoires, which embody excellence in both activities, will begin to enjoy R-income. It is also important to note that conservatoires are also centres for a considerable amount of traditional, university-style scholarly research, the results of which are published in traditional print modes and realised as recorded performance.
11. How should the organisation of research activity be developed over the next 20 years?
11.1In the conservatoire sector, it is important, first of all, simply to recognise that research ought to be supported by resources. Institutions need to introduce regular sabbatical leave schemes; to acknowledge research time in contracts of employment; to have access to Funding Council and British Council research monies. For example, there is at present an anomaly in the Humanities Research Board's policy, whereby composers and music scholars at universities are eligible for studentships whilst those at conservatoires are not. There is no appreciable difference in many of the courses offered by the two types of institution and much evidence to suggest that conservatoires actually provide better training and facilities, especially for composers.
11.2Conservatoires ought to be recognised as centres for research. Some of them have historic libraries of international importance as well as collections of priceless musical instruments. These collections are frequently consulted by visiting scholars and should be exploited and exploitable by research-active staff within the institutions themselves. The integration of academic study and performance courses which is possible within conservatoires has resulted in original work in an under-developed area of research.
12. How can the quality of research in higher education best be maintained and enhanced?
12.1In conservatoires, research must be acknowledged as a part of institutional culture and funded accordingly. Because conservatoires are devoted to practical performance, research through performance and teaching ought to be regarded interdependent.
SECTION 3
13. What should be the participation rate for higher education in the context of changes in society, the economy and the labour market over the next 20 years?
13.1Access to British conservatoires is highly competitive, and the Royal Academy of Music estimates that it could more than double its annual intake of undergraduates above funded numbers with no appreciable decline in quality. There is no doubt that many young, highly talented musicians in Britain are being denied the opportunity of conservatoire training because the number of funded places is capped.
13.2Because the demand for places at conservatoires in this country is so great amongst school leavers, access for mature students is necessarily highly restrictive and, in some institutions, virtually non-existent.
14. What factors should determine the appropriate level of participation in higher education?
14.1British conservatoires are mainly devoted to training professional musicians, ranging from peripatetic school teachers to world-class soloists. All such institutions in England and Scotland report that, within five years of leaving, in excess of 80 per cent of their graduates are employed as professional musicians.
14.2Britain trains fewer professional musicians per capita than does the United States, Japan, Korea, or any other major European country. The perception of Britain as one of the most musical countries in the world, and the present reality that London is musically the richest city in Europe, perhaps in the world, will soon be eroded if our conservatoires continue to be grossly underfunded in comparison with our competitors. For example, the conservatoires of Paris, Amsterdam, The Hague, Vienna, Helsinki and all the major German Hochschulen each have significantly more students than any British conservatoire, and all places are fully funded. Equally depressing are comparative staff salary levels, with professors at German conservatoires earning more than twice as much as the highest paid teacher in any British institution.
14.3If the level of participation and investment in conservatoire training in Britain remains well below that of our European competitors, there will be two main results: more and more positions in British orchestras and within the domestic music industry in general will go to musicians trained on the Continent; English musical culture will gradually weaken and decline.
15. How do you expect the student body over the next 20 years to differ in age, background, education, employment, experience and motivation, aptitude and lifestyle from today?
15.1Students of leading conservatoires have always possessed two remarkable characteristics: exceptional talent, which usually manifests itself at a very early age; and dedication (few other professions require eight to ten hours of physical and mental practice every day). We do not, therefore, expect the profile of the student body to change radically in the next 20 years. However, the curtailment of music education in many state schools right across the country is bound to mean that fewer and fewer of our students will come from socially deprived backgrounds. This trend is already apparent.
16. What should be the requirements for entry into higher education?
16.1In the conservatoire sector the most important principle for selection will continue to be natural musical ability and the will to apply it.
17. How should the admissions procedure be organised for entry into higher education?
17.1In conservatoires, the live audition, which is costly and time-consuming, remains the most reliable method of selection.
17.2Because of the demands of conservatoire training, part-time study is not at all viable at the undergraduate level. It is possible at postgraduate level in exceptional circumstances: for example, if a student is already employed in a professional orchestra or opera company or is enrolled as a postgraduate fellow.
18. How diverse should the higher education sector be across institutions over the next 20 years?
18.1Training in conservatoires must be as diverse as the music profession itself, at least in those branches of the profession for which formal training is relevant. In fact, those activities which still lie at the heart of mainstream classical music - the symphony orchestra and opera - are per force diverse. Adequate orchestral training requires instruction on all the orchestral instruments, composition, and conducting. Opera embraces not only singing, but acting, languages, stagecraft, design and, of course, orchestral accompaniment. Since in the professional world lines of distinction between art, jazz and studio, film and commerical music have all but disappeared, conservatoires too must reflect this new reality and provide similarly flexible and diverse training.
19. What should be the balance between different providers of higher education?
19.1As has been explained in 14 above, conservatoires are exceptionally effective in providing their graduates with the necessary skills and experience to secure jobs in the music profession.
19.2The B.Mus. in Performance offered by the Academy in association with King's College London has demonstrated by the quality of its degrees and employment outcomes the value of collaboration between the conservatoire and university sectors in producing broadly educated musicians. But it is widely recognised around the world that only conservatoires can provide the highly specialised training and facilities which are absolutely essential to produce first-rate professional performers.
20. How should higher education institutions themselves develop?
20.1There are good models to be found in Japan and the United States for the way in which British conservatoires, which are already 20 years behind in some respects, might develop. The most successful and forward looking foreign conservatoires have retained classical musical training as the core activity, whilst diversifying into jazz, electronic, commercial and especially world music. It is widely accepted that musicians who are skilled in western classical music can greatly benefit from exposure to the music of other cultures. However, with present levels of funding, the introduction of multi-cultural music training must have a lower priority than securing adequate provision for established core activities.
21. How should the shape and structure of the higher education sector be determined?
21.1In music and the other creative and performing arts, the shape and structure of higher education ought to reflect the level of commitment to the arts in other national institutions and in society as a whole, respecting both tradition and new developments. The most important advances in art and music have generally been made when artists and musicians have enjoyed maximum freedom and support. In conservatoires, this freedom to explore and perfect one's art needs to be tempered only by the realities of the profession, encouraged through competition, both within and between institutions. Within these limits, institutions themselves should determine their own structures and curricula.