Tertiary music students’ perspectives on activist-musicianship: Approaches, challenges, and perceived role of higher music education

Abstract

While tertiary music programs traditionally focus on developing musicians’ craft, there is an increasing emphasis on the need to develop students’ ability to use their craft in socially engaged ways. This has led to an increase in community music, mobility programs, and performance outreach opportunities being embedded into tertiary music programs. There is also, however, potential for students to develop their craft more explicitly in service of social change through activist-musicianship, but little academic exploration into how this might be embedded into tertiary music programs. This article, through interviews and focus groups, investigates tertiary music students’ perspectives on music’s role in activism, their social values and aspirations, and perceived opportunities and challenges for musicians and tertiary music institutions. Music activism was seen to be possible through focusing on the musician as embodying the message or the music communicating the message, with repertoire choice and the degree of explicit messaging deemed important considerations regarding potential impact. Students highlighted a desire to plant seeds for change, to encourage audience members to become aware of and question unconscious biases and values, and to spark ongoing conversations. Within their programs, students expressed a desire for more autonomy in repertoire selection, for training on the inclusion of extra-musical features to support messaging, and for strong integration and alignment of academic and performance courses that could provide opportunities to practice activist-musicianship as part of their programs. Further to this, there are a range of ethical considerations educators need to be mindful of, which are outlined throughout this article. Insights shared highlight a need for further understanding of the activist-musician and how associated skill sets and opportunities might be embedded within existing tertiary music programs.