Music History Education in Australian Universities

Megan Burslem, Cat Hope

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (Book)Research

Abstract

There has however been a significant shift in the nature of tertiary music teaching in Australia over the past decade. When once Australian music schools and conservatoria focused predominantly on the history of Western art music practice, palaeography, and a composer-centred art music canon, tertiary institutions are instead developing curricula grounded in multi-genre contemporary music practice, global music making, and Australian music history. In other words, the focus has shifted from spe-cialist careers to portfolio careers (Bartleet et al., 2012; Forbes 2016).

Booth (2009) encapsulates the irony present in our quest for a reimagined tertiary music pedagogy when he argues that university training programs do not evolve at the same pace as the music industry, which causes ‘a tension between the skills being prioritised and those needed to live a full, re-warding life in music’ (Booth 2009: 21). In Australia, the Western art music tradition - both practice and philosophy - represents only a small fraction of a diverse, interdisciplinary, and globally connect-ed sector. Furthermore, government tertiary education reform has driven institutional pressure to create revenue, and employment readiness, and has meant that Australian tertiary music schools must look to new curriculum initiatives to address these issues.
In this paper, we will discuss general higher education music history curriculum initiatives at the Aus-tralian Group of Eight (Go8) Universities, in relation to course content and pedagogical approach, and discuss funding attitudes and education reforms that have shaped our contemporary music education landscape.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Teaching of Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Music History at Universities and Conservatories of Music
EditorsJuri Giannini, Julia Heimerdinger, Andreas Holzer
Place of PublicationWein Austria
PublisherHollitzer Verlag
Pages111-120
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9783990126172
ISBN (Print)9783990126165
Publication statusPublished - 2019

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