Capacity Building Seminars

EUROPEAN MUSIC SCHOOL UNION (EMU) CAPACITY BUILDING SEMINARS

EMU has been organising capacity building seminars since 2013 as a service to its members.

The EMU capacity building seminars offer possibilities to learn from the best specialists in music education from different European countries and provide a platform for exchange, peer-learning, and networking. They foster pragmatic and innovative tools for music education development, and therefore all speakers of the seminars have hands-on experience in music education. Since one of the key goals of the seminars is to exchange knowledge among participants, all presentations are followed up by open discussions.

The target group of the EMU seminars is music school directors and teachers, as well as people working in national music school associations. The seminars are well suited for any person who is interested in developing new pedagogical skills and tools.

Music schools interested in hosting a capacity building seminar are asked to make contact with the EMU through their national association.

At the moment, EMU has three different kinds of capacity building programmes:

1) Many Learners, Many Pedagogies
Music schools across Europe are entrusted with numerous responsibilities that require them to simultaneously play different and strongly varied roles. Their pedagogical tasks and duties are shaped by the culture and musical traditions of a given country as well as by the expectations of funders and society at large. They range from the provision of music education for all to the fostering of excellency and the preparation of students for higher music education studies. While these responsibilities are differently weighted from one country to the next, the continuous development of pedagogical methods, technology and music itself leads music schools to constantly adapt and create new working methods. With the capacity building seminar on “Many learners, many pedagogies”, the EMU therefore wishes to shed light on the multitude of tailor-made pedagogies aiming to achieve explicit goals or responding to the needs of specific target groups.

The seminar explores different kinds of pedagogies such as group pedagogy, net pedagogy, early childhood music education, music education for children with special needs as well as for exceptionally talented children or elderly people. The seminar is conceived as a platform for networking and international exchange featuring a set of speakers that provide insights into their specific fields of expertise and engage in discussion with participants. The target group of the seminar are music school directors and teachers as well as people working in national music school associations.

2) Group Pedagogy and Collaboration with Schools
The EMU capacity building seminar on group pedagogy and collaboration with schools aims to shed light on a topic that is strongly equivocal in the way it creates opportunities and raises concerns at the same time. There seems to be widespread agreement that instrumental lessons are more efficient as one-on-one tuition than in the context of group teaching. This is all the more significant in view of the concern of music schools that (public) funders might solely use the cost effectiveness of group pedagogy as an argument in its favour. At the same time, group teaching is at the heart of pedagogies such as early childhood music education and the benefits of non-formal learning through band, orchestra or choir practice are undisputed. Finally, when adding the topic of collaboration with schools to the equation, the potential of group pedagogy for social inclusion and for promoting the benefits of music education for all becomes evident.

The seminar programme therefore sets out to explore a differentiated notion of group pedagogy and collaboration with schools. It presents best practices of designing group lessons for improved group dynamics, it showcases models for collaboration with elementary and secondary schools and gives inspiration and insights into how group pedagogy can make music education more accessible for all. The seminar is conceived as a platform for networking and international exchange featuring a set of speakers that provide a wholistic and European perspective on the topic. The target group of the seminar are music school directors and teachers as well as people working in national music school associations.

3) Quality in Music Education
These seminars present the different kinds of evaluation models and philosophies. The aim of this type of seminar is to explore how we can use evaluation as a tool for development and how we can assure quality in pre-college music education with the help of evaluation. Seminars present quality criteria in pre-college music education made by the European Association of Conservatoires (AEC) and different kind of music schools evaluation models.

If you have any questions concerning the capacity building seminars do not hesitate to contact us at office(at)musicschoolunion.eu

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Some examples of the seminars are below:

Many Learners, Many Pedagogies,
26 – 27 October 2018, Nice, France

The fifth edition of the seminar will take place on October 26 – 27  in the beautiful city of Nice, France. The event will be hosted and held both at the “Hotel Le Royal”, facing the magnificent “Baie des Anges” and in the premises of the Conservatoire of Nice, on the heights of the city.

The seminar will explore different kinds of pedagogies including group pedagogy, net pedagogy, early childhood music education, music education for children with special needs as well as for exceptionally talented children and elderly people. Presentations will be followed up by open discussions among the participants.

The conference language is English with translation from English to French being provided.

Please find the preliminary programme of the seminar here.
Click here for the speakers’ biographies.


‘Group Pedagogy & Collaboration with Schools’
18 – 19 June 2018, Stockholm, Sweden

Please find the preliminary programme of the seminar here.
Click here for a short synopsis of the different sessions.
Click here for the speaker’s biographies.


‘Group Pedagogy & Collaboration with Schools’
27 – 28 October 2017, Reyjkavik, Iceland

Our members have expressed a great interest in a second edition of the seminar on this topic, as many of them were not able to attend the first edition held in Copenhagen in 2016. The EMU has therefore decided to repeat the seminar in Reykjavik with only minor changes to the programme.

Please find the preliminary programme of the seminar here.
Click here for a short synopsis of the different sessions.
Click here for the speaker’s biographies.


‘Quality in Music Education’
26-27 April 2017 2017, Prague, Czech Republic

The seminar explored the different kinds of evaluation models and philosophies. Speakers of the seminar were specialists with hands-on experience in music education evaluation. The seminar explored how we can use evaluation as a tool for development, how the external auditing and evaluation have been conducted in music schools in Czech Republic, how we can assure quality in pre-college music education and presented new quality criteria in pre-college music education made by the European Association of Conservatoires (AEC) as well as the music schools evaluation model from Switzerland. Presentations were followed up by open discussions “Evaluation and quality assurance in music schools” among the participants. Please click HERE to download the detailed programme.


© Laure Boer

‘Group Pedagogy & Collaboration with Schools’
27 – 28 October 2016, Hvidovre (Copenhagen), Denmark

Click HERE for the Seminar programme.
Click HERE for a short synopsis of the different sessions.
Click HERE for the speaker’s biographies.