Typically, 85 percent of all performance majors in schools of music go on to teach, yet only three percent enrolled in music education courses. The deep counterproductive division between those who will perform and those who will teach is a nationwide problem. It represents the failure of most music schools to address the reality that performers today are regularly required to engage in outreach and other educational activities, and that performance majors, with a modicum of effective pre-service and in-service training, can become valuable assets for public school music programs.

Developed in an original FIPSE grant (1998-2001), New England Conservatory’s Music-in-Education Concentration is designed to provide performance majors with new course offerings and community-based service opportunities that recognize the overlapping skills required of today’s performers and teachers. The theoretical questions and new program practices stem from two overarching frameworks: 1) the view of the comprehensively educated musician as an “Artist/Teacher/Scholar” and 2) the creation of innovative curricula in higher education that prepares all music majors through “guided internships” to take on new roles in public schools as teaching artists, artists-in-residence, collaborators with classroom teachers, liaisons for school partnerships, and practitioner-researchers.

New England Conservatory’s Music-in-Education Program now serves as a model for a coalition of institutions of higher education in five cities (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Durham, New York) that include local partnerships with cultural organizations and public schools. The objectives of the dissemination project are threefold: 1) to facilitate the adaptation and expansion of the original Music-in-Education Guided Internship Program based on the Artist/Teacher/Scholar Framework for pre-service programs for music majors, in-service courses for teachers, and the professional development of professional artists in cultural organizations in the new sites; 2) to evaluate the efficacy of these frameworks for their positive impact on curricular reform in postsecondary education, on changes in artist training in cultural organizations committed to educational outreach, and on changes in the role of music education in public schools; and 3) to expand further a national consortium of institutions committed to sharing and publishing best music-in-education practices and increasing their capacities to collaborate effectively with local partnering organizations.

This dissemination project also includes a design for program evaluation that focuses on 1) the development of new Music-in-Education courses and Guided Internship programs for music and education majors; 2) new curricular objectives in the field of action research, collaborative processes with music and classroom teachers, and institutional partnerships; and 3) the creation and evaluation of Music-in-Education Portfolios adapted from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards used for assessing the effectiveness for preparing music performance majors for contribution to public schools.

Awards: New England Conservatory received a two-year grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support 1) the Music-in-Education National Consortium's Professional Development Exchange Program; 2) the dissemination of research and practice through print, electronic media, and conferences; and 3) expansion of the consortium project to include the Chicago CAPE and the A+ Schools Projects in North Carolina.

ONLINE REFERENCE: 

Music-In-Education at New England Conservatory
   http://www.nec-musicined.org/  

Larry Scripp
Project Director

New England Conservatory
Center for Music-in-
  Education
290 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617-585-1364
Fax: 617-787-2599

E-mail: larry.scripp@necmusic.com
URL: http://www.mieatnec.org