International Journal of Music Education

http://ijm.sagepub.com/ Designing the intercultural music education of the future - the development of a world music centre in Portugal
Huib Schippers International Journal of Music Education 2000 os-35: 59 DOI: 10.1177/025576140003500117 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ijm.sagepub.com/content/os-35/1/59.citation

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

International Society for Music Education: ISME

Additional services and information for International Journal of Music Education can be found at: Email Alerts: http://ijm.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://ijm.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

>> Version of Record - May 1, 2000 What is This?

Downloaded from ijm.sagepub.com by guest on February 13, 2013

INTERCULTURAL MUSIC

Designing the intercultural music education of the future - the development of a world music centre in Portugal
Huib

Schippers

In the 1930s, the adventurous Johnsons, a British couple, travelled to Central Africa to study the ways of the pygmies. To the best of my knowledge, no great
new

anthropological insights came to light from this expedition. The great value posterity of their trip lies in the fact that they filmed their endeavours. The highlight of one of these films is a scene in which they decided to give the boys and girls some modern jazz. The gramophone is installed and the wife shows the natives how to dance. The husband remarks how their primitive new friends have trouble keeping the beat, but, he notices, the little savages pick up remarkably quickly. To the best of my knowledge, this is the earliest recorded example of intercultural arts education, and a fabulously ironic picture of pioneers in the field we all take so seriously. It also antedates the conceived beginnings of this area of activity by a number of decades.
to

About seventy years later, a television crew may find a Ghanaian student taking his first gamelan lessons in an old Brazilian villa near an ancient Arab

The World Music Centre housed in

an

old villa in

Portugal

59

Downloaded from ijm.sagepub.com by guest on February 13, 2013

fortress in Southern Portugal. In the autumn of 2003, the worlds first higher education facility dedicated to teaching musics of the world intends to open its doors in Serpa, a historical town situated just north of the Algarve and close to the Spanish border. The World Music Centre is an ambitious initiative that aims to stimulate and improve the teaching of the worlds musical cultures in an age of increasing globalisation and multiculturalisation. The idea first took shape during the ISME Conference in Amsterdam in 1996, and a series of specialised conferences on teaching world music, known as Cultural Diversity in Music Education. The project is based on often expressed international needs. In the past ten to twenty years, a growing number of institutes for music education have started to respond to the challenges that rapidly changing societies have brought. As many presentations and articles in the ISME forum over the past decades have borne out: a music education exclusively based on western classical music is increasingly less defendable, relevant, and effective. Many small-scale initiatives have demonstrated promising possibilities for new approaches to music education. But it has become clear that music education from a global perspective is not something that can be done on the side. It requires profound thinking on the position of different musics in society; the choice of musics to be taught; views on tradition, context, and authenticity; and approaches to methods of teaching. It also requires experiment in an environment that has sufficient human and material resources to develop these areas, which is beyond the means and remit of most existing institutions. The World Music Centre will be able to provide this environment, and work with partner institutions towards a music education that does justice to the complexities of culturally diverse societies. . An International Strategic and Academic Advisory Board - including many prominent ISME members - has assisted in developing a project plan and the outlines of a curriculum that aims to fulfil todays needs in higher music education: a combination of artistic, academic and practical skills. The main activities of the WMC will comprise: . Training students from Portugal, the rest of Europe and beyond to become professional teachers and/or performers in a wide range of world musics, either as a BA or as a one year Masters or diploma course; w Providing students from other institutes for higher education with relevant and stimulating semester abroad or year abroad programmes; . Educating professional musicians and dancers from non-western cultures to teach in western settings; w Introducing students, teachers and composers of western music to aspects of world music and dance through short, intensive courses in Summer, Winter, or during the academic year; . Research & Development: producing teaching methodologies and materials, and running special projects; . Consulting educational organisations, governments and subsidising bodies on aspects of cultural diversity. The teaching programme is being developed on the basis of a modular structure, which allows for optimal flexibility, while a core curriculum will ensure coherence and practical feasibility. At the heart of the programme is a six semester BA in world music with three different profiles: performance, instrumental teacher, and classroom/community music teacher. But each semester is a unity in its own right in order to create optimal possibilities for semester abroad programmes for students from other institutes for higher music education.
60

Downloaded from ijm.sagepub.com by guest on February 13, 2013

The focus will be

instruments. Next to
a

on

instruments, and also addition they will have some exposure to choral music from all over the world, and different forms of world dance. Other musical subjects will be musical history from a world perspective, aural and notational skills, and theory and context. In addition to the music classes, subjects include ICT, project management, and assignments to develop practical as well as artistic skills, because the Centre aims at preparing students for a diverse and competitive job market. At any time, about 250 students will be guided by a team of traditional masters from a variety of cultures, young accomplished musicians, and education specialists from all over the world in a 50,000 square metres, custombuilt campus designed by the renowned Portuguese architect Manuel Salgado. This setting and the Centres resources will be conducive to creating an inspiring learning environment for the students, partly as a contemporary re-creation of the traditional settings of handing down world music, and partly as a high-tech facility, with a digital window on the world. In total, more than two thousand students are expected to pass through the World Music Centre every year, coming from countries and partner institutes on five continents. With its mix of traditional and contemporary features and a multicultural student population, the World Music Centre has the potential to become a powerful force in the world music scene, as well as an international model for higher education at the beginning of the century, and a unique meeting place for music and musicians from all over the world. Initial stages of the development of the World Music Centre have been funded by Dutch and Portuguese sources, to the point of having an outline of the curriculum and architectural development, and a solid business plan and viability study. Currently, the project team is working on organisational aspects such as expanding the development team, the design and building project, and advanced fundraising. On the academic side, priority is given to validation of
the curriculum in Portugal, and identifying partner institutions all over the world that wish to enter into an active exchange of students, tutors and experiences with the World Music Centre. This continuous contact with music and education centres will ensure that at the World Music Centre, music is consistently approached as a dynamic force, not as museum pieces. Justice will be done to time-honoured values as well as creativity and innovation. After all, we will be dealing with living traditions, which have always depended on their capacity to adapt to new circumstances in order to survive and remain vital. Moreover, in seventy years time, the World Music Centre itself aims to be more than an amusing example of anachronistic approaches to cultural diversity at the 60th ISME World Conference.

performance studies, often in a cluster of related principal instrument, most students will study support instruments from a secondary or tertiary tradition. In

Schippers is the director of the WMC development team. Developments followed by subscribing to the quarterly Cultural Diversity in Music Education, published by LOKV, the electronic WMC-Updates (send an e-mail to worldmusiccentre@lokv.nl with subscribe in the subject line), or the website of the Centre: www.worldmusiccentre.lokv.nl. Organisations and institutes interested in co-operation are invited to contact the developHuib
can

be

ment team.

61

Downloaded from ijm.sagepub.com by guest on February 13, 2013

Dessiner 16ducation musicale interculturelle du future - le d6veloppement dun centre de Musique du Monde au Portugal
Centre de Musique du Monde de haut niveau sera ouvert en 2003 a Serpa, au Portugal, juste au nord de 1Algarve. Laccent sera mis sur 1etude des performances musicales comprenant des activit6s de recherches et de d6veloppement et il fournira toutes les facilit6s dh6bergement aux 6tudiants en cycle initial et aux 6tudiants assistant a quelques cours comme les programmes de semestre ou dann6e a 16tranger. Ils suivront les cours de maitres traditionnels, de jeunes musiciens accomplis et de sp6cialistes de 1education du monde entier. Le centre collaborera en partenariat avec des institutions internationale. Un
nouveau

Entwurf einer Interkulturellen Ausbildung fur die Zukunft. Die Errichtung eines World Music Centers in Portugal
neues World Music Center soll im Jahr 2003 in Serpa, Portugal, nordlich von der Algarve er6ffnet werden. Der Schwerpunkt wird auf der Aufihhrungspraxis liegen und Forschung einschlieBen. Es sollen sowohl Vollstudierende als auch Zeitstudierende (Auslandssemester, Auslandsjahr) zugelassen werden. Sie werden von bekannten Kinstlern, jungen Musikern und Pddagogen aus aller Welt unterrichtet werden. Das Zentrum wird auf internationaler Ebene mit Partnerinstitutionen zusammenarbeiten.

Ein

El diseno de la educaci6n musical intercultural del futuro el desarrollo de un centro mundial de musica en Portugal
se abrird un nuevo Centro Mundial de Musica al mds alto nivel en Serpa, Portugal, justo al norte de Algarbe. Se pondrd el 6nfasis en estudios de interpretaci6n, se incluird la investigaci6n y el desarrollo de actividades, y va a recibir egresados y estudiantes para cursos

En el 2003

con programas ya sea de un semestre o de un ano en el exterior. Van a recibir clases de maestros tradicionales, de j6venes musicos talentosos y de especialistas en educaci6n de todo el mundo. El Centro va a colaborar asocidndose a instituciones internacionales.

cortos

62

Downloaded from ijm.sagepub.com by guest on February 13, 2013