Evidence from various sources shows that opera in Europe is developing from a traditional labour market, with jobs for a limited number of singers in opera houses with a stable amount of steady jobs and a conventional program, to a dynamic cross-arts playground, interdisciplinary and innovative, with contemporary repertoire and fresh ways of approaching tradition, attracting new audiences keen on being culturally engaged in new and unique experiences. This requires HEIs to train their opera students with innovative and more effective approaches, especially with regards to collaborative and entrepreneurial skills that will boost their employability as creative makers of opera, capable to act in a globalised professional field and with the appropriate skills and competences that are required by a flexible and multi-faceted labour market. Opera training is extremely comprehensive, both for students and for HEIs, because of the wide range of skills involved and the large variety of specialisations required. Due to organisational and financial reasons, HEIs cannot provide as single institutions the performance possibilities needed for all their students at the right stage in their educational development, they cannot teach all the opera languages to a high level, they do not thoroughly train their students to be independent, entrepreneurial creative musicians and they find it difficult to adapt their curricula to the quest for more student-choice based, individual pathways. In the context of the European Opera Academy (a cross-border initiative to enhance learning and training possibilities for students in opera), a group of 7 HEIs with strong profiles in classical music, vocal training and opera programs, together with the Association Europénne des Conservatoires wants to start a Strategic Partnership. All partners involved are at the forefront of new initiatives in the field of opera, and are pioneers in curriculum development. This consortium sees a perspective for tackling these challenges in a joint transnational way by exploring the possibilities of shared education and by setting up combined programs fostering the development of innovative opera making. The consortium intends to promote and initiate a change of culture and mind-set in opera training through the following innovative activities that would not be possible to implement without this SP: 1. A series of working group meetings to develop new IOs in the area of innovative arrangements of sharing program elements (modules in opera training), exploring innovative opera making, and exchanging teachers (workshops in opera language training) 2. The 3 working groups combine the specific and complementary expertise of the respective partners, and because of the strong relation (new demands from the labour market in opera) between their daily work and all the different IOs carried out by the project they will also be engaged in supporting and completing each-other’s teaching and training processes 3. The development of IOs which leads to curricular reform, a more effective use of scarce financial means to carry out jointly the demanding and expensive opera training, and a more structured and efficient use of Erasmus+ funding for student mobility and teacher staff mobility 4. 1 short term staff training event that will develop and implement new approaches to curriculum design: from standard, monodisciplinary and fixed to cross-art and flexible 5. 3 ISPs in the form of opera festivals where students and teachers meet around the theme of innovative opera making 6. 2 ISPs in the form of workshops/masterclasses on opera language training in which both students and teachers develop their opera language skills. The role of these ISPs will be central to the developmental function of the project and will represent the basis for future developments of this topic 7. The activities and outcomes of this partnership will be evaluated through various evaluation tools and will be disseminated widely through the networks of the AEC and the EOA These activities will lead to improved curricula in the partner HEIs that will be informed about the latest developments in the labour market in opera and in organising learning and teaching opportunities beneficial to students, teachers and HEIs as a whole. Students will be invited to participate actively so to develop into better equipped musicians, prepared for a changed labour market. Teachers will be trained or re-trained, which will lead to higher quality teaching. HEIs will develop an even stronger profile in the field of opera training, which will increase the attractiveness of the European higher education in music. Europe is the cradle of opera-one of its finest intangible heritage- and it is through cross-border cooperation that its further development can best be achieved. The European way of continuous development of its incredibly valuable art in opera will lift spirits
Evidence from various sources shows that opera in Europe is developing from a traditional labour market, with jobs for a limited number of singers in opera houses with a stable amount of steady jobs and a conventional program, to a dynamic cross-arts playground, interdisciplinary and innovative, with contemporary repertoire and fresh ways of approaching tradition, attracting new audiences keen on being culturally engaged in new and unique experiences. This requires HEIs to train their opera students with innovative and more effective approaches, especially with regards to collaborative and entrepreneurial skills that will boost their employability as creative makers of opera, capable to act in a globalized professional field and with the appropriate skills and competences that are required by a flexible and multi-faceted labour market. This EOALAB Strategic Partnership set out to explore innovative learning and teaching methods (shared education) in the context of new opera making and cross-border education within educational networks. It was initiated by the European Opera Academy, which is a network of European music conservatories (part of Higher Education Institutions) that allows their students to participate in modules organized by all partners of the network. By doing so, the EOA’s goal is to foster entrepreneurial, collaborative, interdisciplinary required skills in order to create increased employability for young graduates who will operate in an ever changing job market. The project consisted of 7 HEI’s from 7 countries, including approximately 20 teachers and 40 students, plus the AEC, that executed 5 Intensive Study projects, held 20 Transnational Project Meetings of 3 different working groups, had 4 Steering Committee meetings, and 2 Multiplier Events with over 400 people attending, resulting in 3 main tangible results: 1) a Manual on shared education with guidelines and checklists to develop new curricula. In particular, the manual addresses how to manage and balance academic offer and student mobility, how to deal with recognition of specific Erasmus+ study abroad and transfer of results, and it gives advice on the actual development of curricula according to the local needs, constraints and academic culture (fixed and full versus flexible and open). The Manual is available on the website of EOALAB, and includes materials from 2) and 3). 2) Innovative approaches to opera making : policy recommendations for HEls in opera training. In three Intensive Study Programs, in which students and staff of the participating HEIs participated and which took place in Maastricht (2019), Vilnius (2020) and Porto (2021), new ways of opera making and training were explored. The three ISP’s show a clear evolution in the way the HEIs envisioned opera making. The ISP consisted of both traditional processes of opera making, to ‘thinking-out-of-the-box’ in creating three minute opera’s where music students were challenged to make use of modern technologies. Apart from the ISPs, essays were written in which the tension between the old and the new were discussed. Reflecting on the evolutions in the opera labor market and the role the HEIs take in providing education that increases future graduates’ success in employment on the one hand, and finding the balance in study programs that require students to maintain fundamental skills whilst nurturing the new skills needed for the ongoing experiments in the artistic world. The IO furthermore proposes policy recommendations for HEIs which can be used as a basis for the internal debate on curriculum renewal. All three elements – policy recommendations, essays and articles, and micro-operas on video – can be found on the website. 3) a Model for blended teaching activities on opera language teaching. This intensive five day course for teachers at HEI’s who want to teach Singers Russian or Italian serves, as a model for other languages (English, French, German). Besides guidelines for the set-up of a 3-5 days workshop/masterclass with suitable material for Italian and Russian, class materials about e.g. speech techniques, are included. Background interviews and surveys reflecting on the process of trial and error offer information about the choices of the method. All materials and the 3 results can be found on the website EOALAB.org. The outputs can also be found on the Erasmus Project Results Platform, including some extra dissemination materials as teasers and video materials. The dissemination further took place in two Multiplier events, two congresses of the AEC, one online and one onsite, and through sending newsletters and other channels. The impact of the project for students became clear from the very first moment they took part and were confronted with new ideas and methods. The HEI’s as they are linked to EOA in the first place, will adapt their curricula to the findings of the project, and new exchanges between several schools have started.