Challenging Performance: Classical Music Performance Norms and How to Escape Them

Through the way classical music is taught to young children, obedience, hard work, love, praise and musicianship are all bound-up together at a formative stage, as self-esteem interlocks with self-dis...

15 Dec 20248min

Through their criteria for good marks, the music exam boards schematise and institutionalise standard practice and enforce conformity. But they could and should encourage creativity.

15 Dec 202415min

Juniper Hill calls for 'a relatively judgment-free space in which musicians experience less fear and anxiety about receiving negative feedback and thus feel freer to explore, experiment, develop new i...

15 Dec 20248min

We may readily agree that it’s the job of conservatoires to fit their students for work. But an ethical music school should not be gatekeeping to suit the gatekeepers: it should be putting pressure on...

15 Dec 202428min

Izabela Wagner’s Producing Excellence: The Making of Virtuosos (2015) raises huge questions about classical music training, and whether the artistic results, wonderful as they are, are truly worth the...

15 Dec 202417min

A model of classical music policing shows how normative concert life is squeezed between the pressures applied by critics, agents, etc., and the long preparations through teaching and competition.

15 Dec 20247min

While jurors may claim that they are looking for a performer who can bring something new to the performance of a score, they often disagree so much on what is good that only the most brilliant perform...

15 Dec 202411min

Whether we look at childhood teaching, examining, conservatoire, the virtuoso studio, competitions, the same abuses are found. Much better protection of students is needed. We need to foster teaching ...

15 Dec 202417min