"Rethinking Music Performance in European Higher Education Institutions” (REACT) is a reaction to a current problem arising from the long-established model for teaching music performance in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs): musicians are trained for acquiring read-only skills instead of educating them to become creative professionals. HEIs are not helping musicians to meet the challenges of working life (López-Íñiguez & Bennett, 2020). REACT will mobilise a knowledge-creating international cooperative network to develop a new pedagogical model for HEIs - the Artistic Research-Based Learning (AR-BL) model, inspired by the epistemological framework proposed by the project’s leading team (Correia & Dalagna, 2020). The novelty of this project resides in shifting the focus from technical skills to material thinking, i.e., a specific mode of thought resulting from how ideas and works shape each other, reconfiguring the established mythopoetic configurations. The AR-BL model aims at encouraging a shift towards developing students’ creativity, proactive critical thinking and reflexive musical practice. The main objective is to offer alternatives that will link artistic research, artistic training, personal development, and career management. This model will: (i) increase articulation between HEIs and current professional requirements in the field of performance; (ii) promote a teaching/learning environment based on critical self-reflection and wider societal reflexivity beyond the existing practice; (iii) promote awareness that artistic productions involve knowledge production (material thinking) and exploration of means to share this knowledge academically and via practice (artistic research); and (iv) stimulate and exemplify the integration between different fields of artistic expression in the teaching of musical performance. The implementation of the AR-BL model will not only impact current students and professionals but also aims at having a long-term impact on musical performance teaching practices. Consequently, degree structures and curricula in HEIs, both on a European and wider international scale, are expected to be influenced as well. Using this critical and reflexive approach, based on the aforementioned epistemological framework, the project will pioneer the use of artistic research in music performance teaching and learning practices. Aware of the shifting role of artists and musicians in rapidly changing societies, REACT offers new potential for development in the arts. The added value of REACT is mirrored in its goal of encouraging the training of academics in music performance and the exchange of both existing and new practices developed within the project. Uniting several renowned European HEIs, REACT will contribute to strengthening the European Higher Education Area in the field of music. The project will be developed through a transnational-cooperation setting coordinated by the University of Aveiro, with the participation of the University of Nicosia, the Luleå University of Technology, the University of the Arts Helsinki and the University of Agder. It will focus on improving music performance teaching on a practical level (addressing institutions, teachers/mentors and students), a strategic level (addressing music industries), and on an advocacy level (addressing policy makers). The members of the project consortium have diversified backgrounds (philosophy, music performance, business, sound studies, psychology, sociology, education and transdisciplinary projects) ensuring a syncretic perspective on pedagogical practices regarding music performance in HEIs. The project will produce open access and free outputs throughout its development including not only articles in specialised journals (which are specified in Project Description) but also: (i) a Stakeholders’ requirements report, (ii) a Virtual Academy of Music Performance, (iii) a Toolkit for teachers and students and (iv) a White Book on this topic, entitled Rethinking the teaching of music performance in higher level institutions. The project will also develop two training courses to disseminate the pedagogical model centred on teaching music performance through artistic research and offered to teachers/mentors (interested in reacting and rethinking their pedagogical practices) and students (interested in reacting and developing an artistic career as performers or in performance teaching). The project will organise two multiplier events. The first - REACT Symposium - taking place in Sweden, will ascertain the widest possible, broad dissemination of results and interaction of the strategic partnership consortium with students and teachers/mentors. The second multiplier event – REACT Music Performance Expo, in Finland, addresses the target group of local stakeholders (especially those related to music industries) and aims to stimulate debate concerning career development for performers from higher education music institutions.
The purpose of REACT was mobilizing a knowledge-creating international cooperative network to develop an Artistic Research-Based Learning model (AR-BL model) which will provoke a shift of the focus in the teaching and learning of music performance; i.e., from technical skills to meaning making. AR-BL’s aim is mainly to link artistic training, artistic research, personal development, and career management. The project’s directly respond to the priorities promoting and rewarding excellence in teaching and skills development by addressing the burning professional and wider societal issues in the context of higher music education. This model values the past but at the same time educate for an unknown future and rapidly changing societies, while supporting the development of the students' agency to overcome the boundaries and create their own careers. The AR-BL model propose new artistic possibilities to respond to specific demands when dealing with a diversity of audiences other than traditional concert-goers. The model support institutions to equip students to collaborate with various partners and create projects that attract potential funders/employers.
Practices associated with the teaching and learning of music performance historically focus on a mono-directional teaching and learning environment that emphasizes the development of technical skills rather than critical and creative faculties. The teaching of western art music performance still relies on 19th-century values, which promote the reification of the score by concentrating on realising the composer’s intentions, while frequently ignoring the performer’s innovativeness and potential for interprofessional collaboration. They also ignore the audience and importance of the performance context but continue to inform guides, critical editions of scores and, crucially, the siloed practices in higher music education institutions (HEIs). This model neither prepare today’s musicians for fast changing societies, nor support students' development of agency to cross boundaries of traditions and create their careers. Such crossings of boundaries take place on an individual level, but rarely on the collective level For these reasons, the literature emphasizes the development of new pedagogical models that address this challenges it is not only necessary, but urgent.