Elite music conservatories reinforce male European dominance, study finds
A new analysis of three prestigious European music academies reveals their websites prominently feature white male composers and Western classical traditions while marginalizing other perspectives. The findings suggest institutions claiming to serve modern students may be reinforcing outdated hierarchies that could influence enrollment, curriculum choices, and the field's cultural relevance.
Originaltitel: Nation, gender, and classical music on higher music education institution websites
<p>Classical music is an artform symbolically and materially constructing ideas about nation and gender. The conservatoire, the highest music education institution, is a central institution of classical music, gendering instruments and building on ideas about feminine and masculine styles of music. Further, patriotism and nationalism have been evident in higher classical music education’s selection of repertoire. The aim of this article is to investigate how three European higher music education institutions (The Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Estonia, University of the Arts Helsinki, The Sibelius Academy, Finland, and The Liszt Academy of Music, Hungary). represent nation, gender, and classical music on their websites. The material analyzed here consists of selected multimodal pages from the institutions’ websites: video, text, links, and pictures. They are analyzed in a discourse-theoretical manner focusing on the construction of nation, gender, and classical music. Conclusions discuss the (white) male European master as integral to the heritage of classical music on the websites as well as differences in how the institutions present themselves as national. The article illustrates how classical music higher education in Europe today is relying on representations of national and masculine traditions despite being part of the contemporary European Union higher education initiatives around internationalization and gender equality. </p>