New publication – The promise of music

Outcome Young musicians, courage and faith

Today, young musicians who start their professional musical studies have a mission. Their choice for a labor-intensive education that offers few guarantees of obtaining a steady job requires a lot of courage and faith. Both faith in their own potential and that of music for the world of tomorrow. This publication, with 20 articles from researchers, teachers, and students from the Royal Conservatoire The Hague, asks about how music today can be promising, and also how conservatories can help to fulfill that promise. The book can be purchased on the website of the publisher. Link to Amazon for ordering the book

From the preface

Paul Craenen put a question to young emerging professionals, as well as to experienced musicians and higher education teachers, asking how they think music today might be offering a promise. The ‘promise of music’ may have different meanings in this context. As a musician, one might ask: —What promise does music make to me to enrich my life as a musician? —What does music as a profession promise to me? What do I expect by making music my profession? —What promise have I made to an audience that decides to listen to my music? But one can also ask whether music promises to make the world better, to make people to be better human beings, or to promote tolerance and social inclusivity – and how, if the answer to it is ‘yes’, this promise might be kept? The answers given to these questions by master’s students and experienced teachers at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague reflect the variety of possible understandings of what ‘promise’ might mean. But this diversity also reveals a remarkable core of shared experiences, interpretations, hopes and attitudes.

(From the preface to the book, written by Stefan Gies, Chief Executive of AEC)

Paul Craenen – editor

Paul Craenen is a researcher, composer and a frequently demanded expert at the intersection of artistic practice, education and research. After music studies at the Lemmens Institute, Leuven, he taught piano and experimental music at various music schools in Flanders for many years. He received a PhD from Leiden University for artistic research on the status of the performing body in contemporary composed music. His thesis has been published by Leuven University Press under the title Composing under the Skin: The music-making body at the composer’s desk (2014). He was director of Musica Impulse Centre, a Flemish organisation for art education, from 2012 to 2018. Since 2018 he has been research professor and head of the lectorate ‘Music, Education and Society’ at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. He is also a guest lecturer at Leiden University.

Read Craenen’s chapter about Nomadic musicianship