ICON: Radical professional development in the conservatoire

Introduction

The Innovative Conservatoire (ICON) was created in 2006 after the first Reflective Conservatoire Conference, with a view to providing collaborative, specialised professional development for conservatoire teachers at an international level. Led by Helena Gaunt of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and a team of Creative Directors from conservatoires around Europe (and Australia) ICON holds residential seminars twice a year, on themes such as one-to-one teaching, practising, or musicians’ voices in society. It can also visit particular institutions for intensive sessions known as ICONgo. At the 2015 Reflective Conservatoire Conference, there was an ICON taster session and also an ICON ‘pathway’ which identified presentations of particular interest to ICON participants. There were a number of previous ICON participants at the conference, greeting each other at the start like long lost family members, with whoops of joy in the conference reception area. ICON has that effect on people.

ICON’s mission is about transforming pedagogy through professional development, knowledge exchange, research and innovation. ICON aims to be radical. The ICON approach also aims to be creative, playful, collaborative, outward-looking, relevant, questioning and reflective, and above all driven by artistic practice.

This essay gives an introduction to ICON and its philosophy and methods, seasoned and fortified with observations from interviews with senior conservatoire colleagues that I undertook in January 2015 as part of a project considering options for ICON’s future. It includes my personal reflections on where we are and where we need to be in professional development in conservatoires, from my vantage point as a past participant, Creative Director and – declaring my interest upfront – ICON enthusiast. I hope it may also suggest points of contact and possibilities for pedagogical transformation in Higher Education beyond the conservatoire sector.

Challenging the conservatoire status quo

I came to ICON in May 2011, at just the right time and as part of just the right project (Duffy, 2013). At that time, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) was in the throes of a complete rethink of the undergraduate curriculum. Among the drivers for this were recognising that the likely career paths of our graduates were changing radically and that they would need to be equipped to be flexible, resilient, reflective, collaborative artists. All this was completely in tune with ICON thinking. As a senior manager tasked with leading the first stages of this institutional reform, ICON gave me inspiration and support from a network of professional colleagues.

Conservatoires, up until recently, were deeply conservative institutions; conservative in their models of teaching, and conservative in their purpose of turning out conventionally trained, oven-ready players and singers for the profession or, for those that fail, to teach. I exaggerate, of course, but my colleague Stephen Broad and I have recently written about the acceptance rather than the questioning by the vocationally orientated conservatoire sector of the status quo of the music profession, its hierarchies and structures, its traditions, its protocols, and its boundaries (Broad and Duffy, 2014).

Teaching has always been at the heart of the conservatoire but it has been relatively unexamined – until recently. When I moved to the (then) Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 1999, I was looking forward to being in an institution that took teaching seriously, having come from the world of the university obsessed with the research-assessment framework, where teaching was regarded as a nuisance and necessary evil. Again I exaggerate, but my time from 1999 to 2003 as an assessor on the Arts and Humanities Research Council Panel 7 deciding on applications from young post-docs trying to evade teaching duty, rather than regarding it as an essential, rewarding and creative part of their professional development, was saddening. Teaching was not viewed like that in the conservatoire but as far as I could detect there was rarely much open discussion or examination of teaching methods or guidance for teachers. Ironically in the light of the higher education teaching versus research dichotomy, it was only when conservatoires started to think of themselves as research as well as vocational institutions that a serious interest in and examination of pedagogical practice began.

The received wisdom about conservatoire teaching was along the following lines. Many teachers taught in the way they were taught themselves – in the ‘master-apprentice’ model. Of course, there was inspirational teaching from dedicated professionals who had learned on the job; of course the one-to-one system had wonderful advantages including the opportunity for a depth of encounter that would provide a student with firm technical and artistic foundations for their career and a relationship with a teacher that they might treasure for life. But an over-directive master/apprentice approach could also stifle individuality and narrow choices, turning out technically proficient but creatively impoverished clones of the teacher; it could also encourage inappropriate and damaging power relationships between teacher and student. Peter Renshaw, Head of Research and Development at the Guildhall School until his retirement in 2001 was a pioneer in his trenchant critique of the master-apprentice model, notably in his notion of the ‘culture of failure’ engendered by this model of teaching (Renshaw, 2010). Nowadays many UK conservatoires are adopting increasingly sophisticated pedagogical models. But these were the days before such enlightenment, and those initiatives such as the Higher Education Academy or specialised training through Postgraduate Certificates in Higher Education that have helped HE teaching to be placed on a proper professional footing. Spending most of their day isolated in the teaching studio, conservatoire teachers lacked feedback or opportunities to be open about difficulties or challenges in their teaching. They could become stale and burned out, and could fail to take account of changes in the professional world into which they were dispatching their students.

This was how it seemed to me around the turn of the century, and it has become the orthodox view, at least from those more progressive thinkers, about the bad old days and ways of the conservatoire. But surely this is all rather old news now? Haven’t we moved on? To an extent yes, and the success and centrality of the Reflective Conservatoire Conference and the existence of initiatives like ICON are reflections of that. But if they appear to threaten the perceived ‘core business’ of the conservatoire (repertoire and technique development through the one-to-one lesson and focussed practice) the shutters will come crashing down. My interviews conducted in January 2015 also showed that some traditional practices and thinking are very much still apparent – at least in the staff if not the student body.

To interrogate this orthodoxy further: what do our students think? How do they view their teaching? In my experience they value above all their one-to-one lessons and their in-depth instrumental or vocal study. As one student remarked to me recently (in the context of being somewhat reluctantly pulled away from the practice room to work on a timetabled collaborative project), when else are they going to be able to get this much time to practise? In terms of their career expectations do they still think (as the old orthodoxy had it) that winning a place at music college is their passport to becoming a concert pianist or a principal player in a world class orchestra? Well some of them do, and some of them will end up in those roles – but that’s not my experience recently. In fact, our students are telling us they know all about portfolio careers and are pretty savvy about the range of their options and opportunities. And music students at the RCS (pace a few like the student mentioned above) are also absolutely ready to throw themselves open to new ideas, to collaborate with other disciplines, to improvise, to put themselves into risky artistic situations, to make new work – many of the things that their teachers do at ICON.

It is tempting to think that the tables are turning and we might learn from the attitudes of our new students. But there is still much to do. For example, I recently assessed an undergraduate module on psychology of music, in which there had been sessions on performance anxiety. Student after student recounted to the panel tales of being sometimes virtually paralysed and certainly traumatised by performance anxiety (or subsequently drugged by the beta-blockers that GPs appear to dispense all too readily). It seems to me that a toxic mix of classical music performance norms combined with our methods of teaching contributes to this and it is our responsibility to challenge and change the situation. One way of meeting this challenge is to try and free up the performer via improvisation – where obsessive technical accuracy and faithful adherence to a score is simply not relevant. It is no accident that improvisation is one of the key methods used in ICON, one that many participants find most challenging, but one that in a supportive environment, can be important in promoting a sense of creative experimentation and freedom, rather than paralysis and trauma.

There is something of a campaigning zeal about ICON, and both participants and Creative Directors feel that to a great extent – a desire to challenge the status quo, to change, to develop. ICON explores a radical professional development agenda and a new and transformative model of pedagogy, one that does not rely on deficit and technical cloning but is rather founded on the student’s own creativity and own ideas. Rather than threatening perceived core business mentioned above, this model should serve to enhance how we achieve it – as well as responding positively to the challenges of a rapidly changing profession.

ICON’s history and development

As noted above, ICON began life in 2006, formed by a group of like-minded individuals from around Europe, after the first Reflective Conservatoire Conference. The first main phase of activity was between 2008 and 2010, supported by the AEC Polifonia Project’s Research Working Group (again, interestingly, research providing the impetus for examination of pedagogy). As indicated in the evaluation report by Rineke Smilde, the aims were to create a model of professional development that would:

create teams of reflective teachers, engaging with the potential of research, as champions within each participating institution;

The two seminars (a third was planned but cancelled due to the Icelandic volcanic eruption) were attended by 25 people from 10 different countries. They were devised and led by Helena Gaunt and Bart van Rosmalen. It is testament to the strength of Bart and Helena’s original vision and their innovatory thinking that the overall approach and format of those early trials has remained more or less intact to the present. It is a remarkably strong formula.

The key features of these seminars were (and still are) their directly relevant subject matter, covering aspects such as masterclasses, assessment and one-to-one tuition; their reflective focus – at every turn there a pause for reflection and encouragement to be experimental in ways of reflecting (not just through text); their use of improvisation; their outward focus particularly looking to what could be learned from drama, through the inspirational leadership of Guildhall actor and director Dinah Stabb; and finally, their working forms (described in the next section).

Following the AEC-supported pilot phase, ICON has settled into a pattern of two seminars per year (usually in the beautiful settings of Kallio-Kuninkala, the Sibelius Academy’s country property outside Helsinki and Dartington in Devon – the location, outside our usual places of work, is important) and one-off ICONgo visits to institutions. It is supported and managed by the Guildhall School of Music & Drama alongside a collaborative management structure. A team of Creative Directors from Europe and Australia has been drawn from participants who are personally and professionally invested in the ICON model. The Creative Directors propose ideas for sessions lead them and work collaboratively with the others; they meet separately to plan seminars and workshop new ideas and approaches.

ICON working forms

For me, it is the variety of working forms – how we work – that makes ICON so powerful and meaningful. From the outset, it was important that the participants were at the centre of the working process as the key players, not the consumers of the programme. The original evaluation report described the overall approach to working forms:

Quick changing perspectives: The programme made use of and adapted a series of diverse working forms. Quick and adventurous shifts between these working forms were designed to catalyse a strong learning process, and facilitate profound exchange between participants.

Five dimensions: the working forms address five different dimensions:

peer learning, learning from each other on basis of own experiences;

Integrating the whole body in the learning process or using and exploring music and improvisation as part of the process is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the tired old models of corporate-style staff development and are directly relevant to the way musicians work. Participants are readily receptive to creative approaches, both in and out of their own discipline. Some memorable ICON sessions have used dance and movement, really pushing participants’ usual boundaries; many are very playful. There is often play in ICON, but playing by rules, with structure, is important; Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process has provided ICON participants with another productive working form. ICON working forms are also designed to focus directly on individuals’ concerns and experiences; bringing highly personal source material (this could be a picture, a poem, an object) to a small group is typical. In my first ever experience of an ICON session I remember talking to two colleagues, in an atmosphere of trust and confidence, prompted by my personal source material that went straight to the heart of my feelings about myself as a musician. This is not unusual.

Feedback on ICON

I recently undertook a review to help determine a way forward for ICON to consider some of the questions and issues associated with its potential growth and development (such as finance, governance, quality). The major questions were around sustainability, impact within institutions, documentation of outputs and ICON’s place in both institutional and emerging Europe-wide continuing professional development (CPD) and accreditation structures. I gathered input via interviews with both long-standing ICON participants and arms-length observations from senior conservatoire managers to inform the review. Here are some of the key features they reported as being important and often unique to the ICON approach to professional development.

In ICON, participants are always ‘doing’ something – and that something is always changing. It is an intense learning experience from the moment participants walk in. There is very little sitting about or being lectured at; rather there are shifting perspectives, moving, refreshing, using the space, going for a walk, playing, working with others. As one interviewee remarked ‘people are too used to being an audience and being lectured without active participation. Even for such a short session we had to actually do something – it makes you start to think in a different way’. Another noted how the working forms equip teachers with practical tools they can use back in their institutions.

Topics covered in ICON are ones that fundamentally mean something to classical musicians and are led by fellow conservatoire ‘insiders’ who have a precise understanding of the issues their colleagues face. Although one interviewee reported that among a conservatoire staff body there can be a perception that ‘I’m at the highest level so what can I learn?’, this is now becoming less common. It is countered by another interviewee who reported that after, say 20 years of teaching, ‘it feels very supportive to know you’re not alone and you may not know how to solve problems. In terms of self-confidence particularly for highly experienced teachers, it’s difficult to knock on the door of the prof who works next door to you but easier to talk to others from different places and environments.’

Most interviewees noted the importance of the artistic focus of ICON, particularly to teachers ‘who rail against anything managerial’. Others noted how important it is to look at our own discipline through other artistic lens – and how much we can learn by doing that. Dinah Stabb’s sessions, programmed on the very first morning of seminars, set the tone here. There is much musicians can learn from drama, such as presence on stage or inhabiting a space, but also about how to turn round fundamentally bad habits that classically trained musicians can adopt. Dinah’s frequent observation in the course of what, for actors, are routine warmup exercises is that it really does not matter if you do not ‘get it right’; the important thing is to carry on rather than, as so often is the case with musicians, stopping, crumpling and then trying to correct a ‘mistake’. Improvising can be a challenge and a turn-off for some potential participants, and the playful nature of some of ICON activity needs to be framed carefully. Most interviewees, however, saw the purpose of the improvisation as an aid to freedom in playing and in expression, with one commenting on how improvisation had really extended their self-confidence and freed their thinking.

One interviewee commented how seeing what’s going on in other institutions around the world acts as a mirror for questions about one’s own practices. The importance of networking and sharing with peers from a range of different countries and perspectives, in a location away from the home institution and in an atmosphere of trust and collegiality, cannot be over-estimated, especially for participants coming from an institutional culture of not acknowledging or airing professional problems. Interviewees also noted how ICON could fulfil the important need for those aspiring to senior roles and leadership to have an international peer group, a wider network beyond their own environment. This has naturally evolved as part of ICON through the Creative Directors structure, but could become a more defined part of its remit.

In tune with the times, ICON is almost obsessively reflective but it looks constantly to find ways of reflecting that are not traditionally text-based or individual. For example, after the 2014 ICON seminar in Dartington pairs of participants undertook to continue a reflective and questioning dialogue beyond the seminar. My partner and I bravely tried to keep this up, but failed after for two or three exchanges – real life got in the way. Or, to put it another way, this exchange did not provide enough return-on-investment of time and effort. ICON needs to find a way to make its offering not just a ‘nice to have’, but a ‘need to have’ – and to convince both participants and institutional managers of the necessity of its change agenda. Because there does need to be change on both sides.

A call to action – and for change

As noted above, sustaining the ICON effect beyond the seminar and using it to enable visible and obvious change is one of the problems. One proposal for developing ICON’s tangible reach into institutions is for it to be involved with formal processes of teacher accreditation. In the UK, there is a requirement for new lecturers in HE to undertake a teaching qualification but this does not appear to be a widespread requirement in the rest of Europe. Most interviewees agreed on the difficulties, in the home institution, of getting staff development organised, attended and embedded – difficulties exacerbated where the staff development offering is generic rather than specialist in focus. The managers I interviewed expressed the need to see some concrete, practical results in terms of change in the conservatoire curriculum: ‘It is important that we find ways to make what has been done in ICON more solid […]. If we continue like this then interest will fall off if it doesn’t lead to any specific results and the energy will leak away.’ Although agreeing that we need to be able to point to evidence of change, I doubt that looking to ICON to provide a blueprint for a direct and measureable effect on the conservatoire curriculum will yield quick results. Rather, through the evolving practice of its participants, ICON is stoking a slow-burn, gradual cultural shift. But is this enough?

One interviewee made some forthright comments on the conservatism of our sector: ‘the professional worlds are inherently and innately conservative – business models are conservative and professional organisations like orchestras are very static – people only want to operate in one way. And those are the people training students to be like them. But our graduates are going to have to adapt and transform the way they work, so rather than reinforcing stereotypes we need teaching staff to recognise the new realities of the profession, including, for example how important it is to learn to teach.’ ICON’s way of combining specialised professional development with artistic development, its emphasis on providing participants with practical skills and methods, its focus on critical enquiry and reflection and its culture of sharing and openness, should be powerful tools in making that change and may provide models that could be adopted in other discipline areas. For example, I think it is likely that the newly formulated RCS graduate outcomes with their emphasis on creative attitudes and independence are not unusual these days; they could only be achieved by rethinking the balance of the students’ learning processes and ‘content’ to be learned. But (isolated examples apart), on one hand, there is little evidence that teachers on the ground recognise this bigger picture and are prepared to take action, and, on the other hand, much enthusiasm from those in management positions to make systemic change. We have been talking about it at successive Reflective Conservatoire Conferences and we are still talking.

One of the problems is the conservatoire staffing structure. Part-time professional musicians as teachers are the mainstay of the conservatoire. These individuals are highly respected and valued in the institution; starry professionals are by far the most powerful draw for prospective students (and we never forget the intensely competitive nature of the conservatoire sector). Part-time teachers, some of whom, for example in so-called minority instruments, may only work a tiny number of hours per year, tend to focus more on their individual students rather the institution. For example, I have noticed over the years how few part-time teachers attend graduation ceremonies at the RCS – I can only conclude that this most obvious display of the corporate culture of the institution seems less relevant to them than it does to full-timers. Historic low numbers of part-time instrumental staff on the RCS’s Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Learning and Teaching is also telling. To a busy professional, already juggling playing and teaching commitments, the considerable commitment demanded from these sorts of course offerings (even if they were attracted by them in the first place) is a real obstacle. For institutional managers, engaging an elusive, somewhat disengaged cohort of part-time staff in professional development and change is difficult on many levels, not least practically.

There is a deeper issue here, and that is a disconnect between the institutional management and the teacher in the one-to-one studio. Instrumental teachers are not generally empowered individuals in our institutions. It is all very well for ICON to place the teacher at the centre and promote ownership of their own development, but the reality is that part-time teachers have, in job evaluation parlance, very limited ‘agency’, freedom to act or opportunity to change the practice of the institution. Where they can – and do – make a difference is in their interactions with individual students. Why they engage so readily and meaningfully with the ICON approach is because it is practice-orientated and embodied. But all this may not be obvious to the institutional manager anxious to see ‘concrete results’ from ICON. The one-to-one work is, by its nature, just not visible and often not well understood – and the practitioners on the ground are constrained in their advocacy or ability to make a difference.

It seems to me that both sides need to act. Teachers on the ground need to engage more with institutional processes and need to be more assertive about their professional needs. Institutional leaders need both to listen to and challenge their staff. A model of leadership development, differentiated from existing generic offerings by being explicitly engineered for a conservatoire context, is needed. It could be one of the most productive avenues for ICON to develop its team of Creative Directors including new or aspiring institutional leaders – individuals who do have the agency within the institution and, importantly, the understanding of practice and confidence to work with teaching staff in an informed and challenging way.

With the Teaching Excellence Framework on the horizon in England, the ICON approach is timely and applicable more widely than in our small specialist sector. There is no doubt that in conservatoires we have moved on from some of those bad old assumptions and practices of the past, but structural conservatism in our institutions and the profession lingers. ICON has the ability to challenge that conservatism, to bridge divides and to continue creatively to interrogate and transform our practice.