European musical creation has greatly evolved these past 15 years. Digitalization of design, production and dissemination processes have disrupted practices. Moreover, the changes in art budgets have obliged art field - and musical creation - to adapt and conceive new formulas for sustainable and solid productions. Nowadays a lot of co-productions, involving different cultures and ways of conceiving and thinking music, are encouraged. This has abviously led Higher Education Institutions to review their teaching methods in order to prepare future young artists to adapt to a changing musical industry and a more complex and diverse professional world. Thusly, IMCC (Itinerant Musical Composition Classes) is precisely a strategic partnership that aims to enhance a new learning and teaching method : short itinerant music composition classes that ambition to be spaces of experimentation, fun learning, deepening of artistic sensibilty, and acquisition of creative, digital and multicultural skills, in an international environment. All this in the objective to prepare Music Composition and Sound Art students to professionnal career and boost their employability. The partnership takes root around 4 Higher Education Institutions : -Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée in Fance (UPEM), its coordinator -Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL) in Lisbon, with its NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities (NOVA FCSH) -Superior Conservatory of Music «Joaquín Rodrigo» (CSM), in Valencia, Spain -L'École Nationale Supérieure d'Art de Bourges (ENSA), in France Each Partner, aware of the needs for strengthening European cooperation -to respond to transformations in musical industry background-, have decided to enlarge existing collaboration and develop the first Itinerant Classes program in Musical Composition and Sound Creation field. UPEM, UNL, CSM and ENSA will each organize a Masterclass of 6 days including 5 students, in Music and sound creation, selected from each Partner. During each Masterclass workshops and productions will take place along with the elaboration and production of a final concert. IMCC aims, therefore, to be a differentiated teaching method. Students will get to discover courses and techniques they would not have studied in their home university thanks to each partners expertise : instrumental and electronical composition, software creation for music and sound, ethnomusicology, sound and radio arts etc. Furthermore, the concerts organized at the end of each Masterclass are planned to be thought, conceived, prepared and produced by students with the help of their teachers and "Masters". Students will be actors of their learning process by seriously taking part in the organization of this creative production. The innovative input of this experience is that it will all take place in an European environment, responding to transnationalism of Music Production industry and offering the possibility of broadening of habits, curiosities. Meeting "Masters" elsewhere will considerably widen possibilities, allowing different ways and methods, perhaps more adapted to individual artistic sensitivity of young creators. In addition to Masterclasses organized in each Partner Institution, IMCC will encourage the use of digital educational tools : a digital art portfolio will be designed, Masterclasses and concerts will be recorded for educational and dissemination purposes. These tools will contribute to develop an original learning-outcome curricula, to develop digital competences and to identify specific skills for valorization of results and background in labour market. Furthemore, reports, publications and elaboration of a global website will be strategic tools for the promotion, communication and dissemination of conception, elaboration, process and final assessment of IMCC. The association of private partners like Documentation Center for Contemporary Music, Society of Composer Authors, Music Publishers (CDMC),INA-GRM, National Center of Creation, School of Audio Engineering Institute (SAE) respond to the willingness to create a professional network-strongly introduced in Music industry-, in order to respond to labour needs, to contribute to an efficient evaluation of results and to support dissemination and sustainability of IMCC. IMCC is expected to produce real changes in the acquisition of complementary skills -creative, digital and multicultural ones- in order to facilitate employability and professional success of students in Sound arts. Through dissemination of a new efficient teaching and learning method, IMCC expects to become a model for other Higher Education Institutions, and to be transferable to other fields. Moreover, the constitution of an European university level network of composers and professors will surely enrich contemporary music composition area.
We wanted to : Encourage the development of creative and innovative artistic skills in a european and international environment ; Experience and disseminate an innovative learning method: transnational itinerant composition classes to develop students' artistic, creative, linguistic and multicultural skills; Encourage the use of digital educational tools for the design and development of creative work; Foster employability of students. The main goal in Lisbon Masterclass was to develop electroacoustic music diffusion multichannel, develop collaborative electroacoustics under specific subjects. The main goal in Valencia Masterclass was to work bridges between art and industry, working with companies, festival Ensems; but also to keep improving everything learnt in Lisbon and during the Online Masterclass through creating a piece with synchronized lights. The main goal in Bourges Masterclass was to open the activities to the field of contemporary art exploring the installations and radio art. The main goal in Paris Masterclass was to consolidate the previous teachings and acquired skills and to reinforce the necessary skills and tool mastery for live collective performance.
We applied for this project because the evolution of western musical creation since the 2000s requires multiple financial and institutional transnational arrangements, leading to new skill needs : linguistic and multicultural ones. Moreover, with digitalization of design and production processes it has become imperative to deepen other skills in the field of musical composition : adaptation to digital tools, adaptation to national cultural variations. Finally, IMCC aimed to foster learning mobility and employability. We felt the need for a confrontation of pedagogical methods of teaching international musical composition and to find active and current methods to better engage the students in the professional life of a European composer / sound artist. We also perceived a need to disseminate concepts and tools worth being better known (programming software such as Max or Iannix, interface and live performance tools and concepts, reverse pedagogy applied to music composition and sound creation…). Moreover, music composition is usually a very solitary task, as well as composition teaching, and we felt the need to explore more collective approach, in a multicultural environement, all these constituted a very important added value.