Examples of pathways

Please find below a description on various ways that the personal pathway of a student who is enrolling in the Joint Master programme may look like:

Pathway one

This student is a guitarist-percussionist who is based in Copenhagen and has been playing professionally in rock and jazz bands for a number of years. Whilst he enjoys his work, he is keen not to get ‘stuck’ in one scene, and sees this Master in New Audiences and Innovative Practice as a way of ‘spreading his wings’ as a performer and collaborator.

His chosen specialisation is Collaborative Practice, particularly in relation to western-trained musicians working with musicians and performing artists from the African and Latin-American tradition.  His selected Home Institution is the Guildhall School in London where, along with the compulsory modules and mentoring support, he knows he will have plenty of opportunity to work with musicians from a wide range of cultural backgrounds.  He also knows that there is an annual placement arranged by the School in either Africa or South America and that visiting artists come over to collaborate with staff and students regularly each year. 

For Phase 2 he will go to Prince Claus in Groningen in order to further develop his arranging, improvising and theoretical skills, particularly in reference to the Conservatoire’s New York Connection.  He will also develop his confidence as a leader, working as an assistant tutor for the first year undergraduate professional development orientation week.

On returning to London he engages with a number of collaborative projects and placements that involve musicians and dancers from Europe, Africa and South America. Whilst the processes are essentially practice-based, he ensures that he monitors and evaluates the approaches and responses of the participants involved, in order to ascertain where the commonalities are in creative collaboration amongst a group of such culturally diverse arts practitioners.  This leads to a final performance event involving himself and a number of these practitioners in an East London venue, close to where the 2012 Olympics are taking place.

Pathway two

This student is a successful free-lance Early Music singer based in London, who wishes to specialise in Cross-sector settings. She begins the Master programme in The Hague, travels to Jyvaskyla for the second phase and then returns to The Netherlands in order to set up and implement a number of participatory workshops and performances in both Early Years and Healthcare settings.  Of particular interest to her is the impact of collaborative song-writing in these settings.  She hopes in the long run that this will lead to the establishment of her own company or organisation that specialises in offering creative projects for these sectors.

Pathway three

This student is a composer and viola player who is based in Athens and wishes to specialise in performance work that particularly involves string ensembles working with live audio and visual technology.  He begins the Master programme in Iceland, travels to The Hague for the second phase and then returns to Iceland in order to create and produce a number of installation performance events in a variety of indoor and outdoor contexts.  The long-term aim is to establish a festival and exchange programme for composers/performers that connects and celebrates the commonalities (e.g. the ancient) and the contrasts (e.g. urban/rural) between Athens and Iceland.

Pathway four

This student has just taken his Bachelor’s degree in piano in Jyväskylä. She wants to continue her studies with the Joint Master and enrols at the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences.  The student goes to London for the Globetown schools project and classical improvisation optional study, and returns to Finland in order to set up a large-scale creative music project for young instrumentalists living in and around Jyvaskyla. This will lead to the setting up of new ‘mixed ensembles’, led by the young people themselves and mentored by the pianist.

Pathway five

This student is a jazz trombonist who begins at Prince Claus Conservatoire, goes to Iceland to explore and learn from ensembles who interpret early Icelandic music and returns to Groningen in order to establish her own  ‘centre’ or ‘laboratory’ for classical and jazz musicians wishing to explore new musical languages through processes involving group composition and improvisation.