Higher Music Education in the Face of "New Musicianship"

1. Facing ‘the Curse of Living in Interesting Times’
Higher Music Education
in theHigher Music musicianship’
in face of ‘new Education
Dr HEIDI PARTTI
SIBELIUS ACADEMY

2. Wenger, E. 2006
“We cannot address today’s challenges with
yesterday’s perspectives. We need new visions
of what is possible. We need new models to
learn how to learn at multiple levels of scale,
from the personal to the global.”

3. Wenger, E. 2006
“Increasing our capacity to learn – individually
and collectively – is taking on a special
urgency if we see ourselves caught, as I
believe we are, in a race between learning and
the possibility of self-destruction.”

5. “multiple,diverseenviron
ments”
“creative
economy”
“flexible
arrangements”
“participatory culture”
“innovation driven society”

6. ‘Participatory culture’ &
‘new musicianship’
• From consuming toward creating
• Softening of borders between
consuming/producing, highly specialised
expertise/amateur music making, musical
genres&styles, composer/performer/audience
etc…
• ‘New musicianship’: valuing musical breadth;
importing, exporting & combining creative
ideas and new perspectives; uprootedness:
being neither in nor out

7. From stability towards change?
From a reactive role towards a predictive role?
From compartmentalized musicianship towards
WHY SHOULD WE CARE?
cosmopolitan musicianship?

8. Participatory assessment research project
(Partti, Westerlund, Lebler, in-progress)
• Students were invited to participate in
assessment:
- Folk music programme: public exam-
concerts; the student & teacher reflect the
whole process; the jury ‘asks as many
questions as possible’
- Pop music programme: students submit
recordings & statements, comments on
outcomes and marks; assessment panel (incl.
peers&teacher) consider submissions

9. Participatory assessment research project
(Partti, Westerlund, Lebler, in-progress)
• Assessment as learning
• Aims to strengthen students’ professional
agency
• Rehearsing the giving & receiving of feedback,
negotiation, flexibility to work in various
communities & contexts
• > equipping the students to embrace diversity
& flourish in changing professional fields

10. NEW
SKILLS?!

11. Facing the change
• ‘Craft of cooperation’ (Sennett, R. 2012):
How to live and work with people who are
different than I?
• Collective intelligence (e.g. Jenkins et al. 2006):
“the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes
with others toward a common goal”
• Negotiation (e.g. Wenger 1998; Jenkins et al.
2006): “the ability to travel across diverse
communities, discerning and respecting multiple
perspectives, and grasping and following
alternative norms”

13. Thank you!
www.heidipartti.com