Words matter and it is worth thinking about what the word conservatoire communicates– the etymology of which is from the Latin conservare – to keep, preserve or save.
The word conservatoire was first used in relation to music, in Italy from the mid 16th century in connection with hospital-based orphanages (‘saved’ children) which became the first secular institutions for training practical musicking. The ‘saving’ was thus associated with the children, not specifically the music.
From the late 18th century conservatoria started to emerge throughout Europe and from the mid 19th century also in the United States. These were, and still are, institutions where the practical aspects of musicking, the embodied knowledge of music-making is taught, as opposed to the universities which are often more theoretical. However, in many countries this distinction has become somewhat diluted.
Conserving the curriculum
We can think of the act of conserving as active – we keep something safe, we avoid waste or wilful destruction. What relationship does this have with change? How do we choose what we conserve?
Conserving is also the art of preserving fruit and vegetables. It is a way of responding to material through using tried and tested knowledge. Which sort of fruit or vegetable one uses depends on the specific situation and may involve experimentations with new combinations of materials that may intra-act in different ways. Known methods may have to adapt to the new materials. This image might be useful as we investigate how a curriculum could adapt, both to include those who have often been excluded, and when exploring the possibility of expanding the very notion of what belongs in a curriculum.
Situating the conservatoire
As noted, conservatoires starting emerging through Europe in the end of the 18th and early 19th century. The musicologist Margaret E. Walker notes that, ‘undergraduate curricula in most post-secondary music programs in North America today essentially adhere to this same set of core courses. Expansions to include twentieth and twenty-first century repertoire, technological developments, and fields such as music education and ethnomusicology have not altered the foundational structure inherited from nineteenth century institutions.’1 I propose that this is also relevant in Europe conservatoires.
An incomplete study of the bachelor curricula of composition departments in conservatoria and a few Universities mostly based in Europe exposes a remarkable consistency of content. People of colour, women, and non-Western influences are almost entirely missing. It is thus not surprising that concepts such as feminism, de-colonisation or inter-sectionality are largely conspicuous by their absence. This raises questions of how we situate the conservatoria of the 21st century, of a situated curriculum.
How do we situate the conservatoire now?
Kathleen Coessens and colleagues expand on Clancey’s definition of situatedness and suggest that there are three aspects of situatedness - social/ecological/epistemological. These three aspects are always present but often one is dominant.
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Ecological situatedness can be defined as: ‘the ecological, physical and perceptual embeddedness of the action – and actor – in the specific context’. In relation to the conservatoire this could include where the physical building is situated and the connection between the conservatoire and the city and its inhabitants.
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Epistemic situatedness is: ‘the knowledge exchange between the actor and the environment’ which correlates to notions of how we define the canon and the curriculum.
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Social situatedness is described as: ‘inter-human exchange, communication and memory.’2 This connects to how we teach, what input students have in the education process and how we make music together.
The historical situation discussed above relates to both the ecological situatedness – where we do, and the social situatedness – how we make music together.