Given our diverse student population and the changing cultural climate, how could we support a more representative curriculum? And what might an artistic response to this look or sound like? This paper does not pretend to offer definitive solutions but rather to raise speculative lines of enquiry that may stimulate further research.
When imagining how to proceed it makes sense not only to acknowledge our heritage, where we come from, but to situate ourselves in the now – how, why, where and what we do in the present. What is the relationship between the curriculum of the conservatoire and its student population that is approximately 70% non-Dutch, from both European countries and beyond? Is it even appropriate to talk in terms of representation when discussing Western art music? What kind of intra-action, as Karen Barad would say, do we want to imagine into being, do we want to nourish between the curriculum and students?1
After introducing some of the theoretical models at the core of this paper, I will undertake a short discussion on the historical situation of the conservatoire with the aim of contextualising our current potential predicament. This research is very much an intertwining of theory and practice – of praxis. Ideas are presented and then activated. An ‘exchange’ workshop with students from the composition, sonology and art/science departments allowed me to translate theories into activities and the latter part of this paper is thus devoted to a discussion of a real-life situation and the considerations of what emerged.