The Independent Conservatory: Foundation for the Future

By James Gandre

Classical music is as relevant and powerful as it has ever been. But if we are to excite future generations, we need to wholly reimagine how to present this cherished art form. And to accomplish that, we must rethink how we train and nurture young musicians.

An impressive number of professional musicians who inhabit today’s stages are graduates of independent conservatories, as opposed to schools that are part of larger colleges or universities. Given their singular focus on music and their small, nimble nature, conservatories are uniquely positioned to play a pivotal role in the evolution of classical music’s presentation and dissemination.

As the mighty band of eight American conservatories (and as many of the university music schools that might wish to embark on this adventure) prepare students to thrive in an ever-evolving artistic environment, so can we prepare them to be the catalysts of these changes. After all, conservatories have long had a profound influence on American musical culture, since the founding of the first three—Peabody Institute (now a part of The Johns Hopkins University), the New England Conservatory, and the Boston Conservatory—in the 1850s and ’60s.

Like our seven siblings, we at Manhattan School of Music require thousands of hours of individual practice of our students, along with analytic work in theory and historical study, as put in perspective through musicology and the humanities. Students learn about personal and individual discipline, about collaboration in groups small and large, about traditions of the past, about the challenges of the future, about the struggle for excellence and the rewards that follow.

Our students—and their future audiences—have been raised on every technological advance. Staying in tune with their learning styles means exploring, for example, online learning (by now traditional in much of higher education), and unchaining ourselves from the time-limited lecture/seminar format. The 24-7 nature of the online experience provides the opportunity for faculty to expand the classroom experience far beyond the traditional timeframe and for students to delve more deeply, to participate in discussions about composers, music history, performance practice, and the like—all on their own timetables.

Manhattan School of Music was among the pioneer users of technology as a teaching tool, 20 years ago when Pinchas Zukerman used videoconferencing to give lessons, while performing around the world. That work has grown over the years and we now regularly work with such institutions as Finland’s Sibelius Academy, the Royal Danish Conservatory, the Shanghai Conservatory, and the Cleveland Institute of Music to deliver and receive master classes and clinics on a wide range of topics related to performance, which enlarges the world of each institution, offering far more than any one could on its own. MSM trustee and baritone Thomas Hampson gives master classes open to thousands across the world. We also continue to push boundaries in this area, as students and recent alumni create their own programs and distribute them electronically. Today our students are teaching lessons in “Musical Math” daily in 39 states and 22 countries worldwide. The program is a distance-learning curriculum designed to illustrate a direct correlation between fractions and musical note values, so that young learners are introduced to the classical canon and are able to appreciate how music is constructed.

As early as three decades ago, a few conservatories opened career development offices to help students manage the business aspects of their art. By now most of us have moved well beyond training in basic résumé and bio writing; we encourage students to find their inner business sense and to imagine unique ways in which to make their way in the world order of music and the arts. This year alone, our Center for Music Entrepreneurship helped students produce projects that included a software system that would determine the wishes of audiences in various cities regarding repertoire and types of performing ensembles as opposed to the traditional method of booking ensembles/artists and then trying to sell tickets.

At the same time, we emphasize that their art must be more than something for a select few. It must speak to, enlighten, and enrich great numbers of people. In so doing students not only become better artists, but they ultimately help shape our society.

By and large, live listening rituals continue an unfortunate tradition that began in the 19th century, slowly hardening our concert halls into seemingly lordly temples of dead-composer preservation (with a few living ones thrown in for good measure). The music may be vibrant and fresh, but the means of presentation is most definitely not. Conservatories are uniquely positioned to change that. Because we are educational institutions, we are less beholden to boxoffice strictures. We can push beyond boundaries in a way that professional orchestras, opera houses, and chambermusic presenters cannot. We can further explore more complicated and varied challenges like alternate performance venues and easily addressed but somewhat emotionally charged issues like concert dress and deportment. We can offer more variety in repertoire planning as well as new audience experiences to engage a variety of concert goers. The possibilities are many, including apps for personal devices that would allow different kinds of participation by and responses from patrons; lighting designed for specific works; and, quite simply, frequent and closer interaction between performers and their audiences.

Miami’s New World Symphony, actually a post-conservatory training program, is a shining example of this type of change; in pursuit of its goal of “generating new ideas about the way music is taught, presented, and experienced,” it has built at its three-year-old New World Center a 7,000-squarefoot projection wall adjacent to the building’s entrance to create a 2.5-acre outdoor “Soundscape.” Here, in the middle of downtown Miami Beach, the public can listen to live performances (and occasionally rehearsals) taking place inside the Center, as well as watch video that is often tailor-made for the works at hand. Soundscape, at which events are free, is visible (and audible) to an urban public and central—literally—to their daily lives. It’s a prime example of changing and expanding the ways people engage with live music, moving out of the temple and into the great outdoors, in this case with the help of modern technology.

How we consume the arts has been changing and evolving for years. It’s not going to stop. Together, we in conservatories can lay the foundation for the next chapter. We must, in the words of the great architect Daniel Burnham, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized. Make big plans….” •

James Gandre is the newly appointed president of Manhattan School of Music. He previously served at Manhattan from 1985 to 2000, most recently as dean of enrollment and alumni. From 2000 until 2007, he served as Dean of Chicago College of Performing Arts, and from 2007 until 2013 as provost of Roosevelt University. His doctoral dissertation detailed the rise of the American music conservatory and speculated on its future. As a professional choral singer he performed with some of the most renowned international artists of the past 40 years, in concert and on more than 15 recordings and live television broadcasts.