Read the news release announcing the launch of the Global Conservatoire in 2021

NEWS RELEASE

April 22, 2021

MSM joins forces with the Royal College of Music (London), the Royal Danish Academy of Music, the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna to launch THE GLOBAL CONSERVATOIRE

The Global Conservatoire is a new digital learning environment, or “global classroom” that will expand each partner school’s course offerings, opening up students to a new world of asynchronous music studies against a rich cultural backdrop.

April 22, 2021 (NEW YORK, NY) – Manhattan School of Music (MSM), the Royal College of Music (London) (RCM), the Royal Danish Academy of Music (RDAM), and the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW) have joined forces to form the Global Conservatoire, an ambitious digital learning environment that will expand each institutional partner’s course offerings, opening up a new and flexible world of asynchronous courses against a rich cultural backdrop.

This innovative partnership, which launches as a pilot program in 2021–22 with one course in the fall semester and additional offerings in spring, will bring faculty and students from each of the four institutional partners into an online classroom, cultivating an international exchange of ideas. The program’s asynchronous design will allow students from four conservatories in three different time zones to work at their own pace, completing courses around busy rehearsal and practice schedules.

Students in the Global Conservatoire will gain new perspectives on a range of music studies, learning in a global ‘classroom’ while never having to leave their home institution. Drawing from the expertise of faculty from each of the program partners, the Global Conservatoire’s online curriculum will provide access to subjects unique to each partner school. And, although asynchronous to allow maximum flexibility in student and faculty schedules, each course will include synchronous, online sessions to build and deepen the relationship between instructors and students.

The first year or pilot phase of the program will offer eight courses in 2021–22 with the Global Conservatoire’s course catalog expanding each year during the partnership’s first five years. The resulting courses will provide students with a diverse choice, with offerings equally apportioned among the four partner schools.

The Global Conservatoire, which will be available to both undergraduate and graduate students, seeks to draw on its partners’ wide-ranging background and extensive collaboration in distance learning prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the lessons learned from last spring’s rapid-response pivot to online learning through this academic year. By consolidating its partners’ collective experience in the digital realm and unique subject expertise, the Global Conservatoire will lead a groundbreaking flagship program that transcends borders, connecting students from four prominent international conservatories into what will eventually become a virtual, transnational academic hub or ‘global college town.’

From a statement issued by the leaders of the Global Conservatoire’s four partner institutions, James Gandre, President, MSM; Colin Lawson, Director, RCM; Uffe Savery, President, RDAM; Ulrike Sych, Rector, MDW:

“We are so pleased that an idea sprung from our collective discussions in fall 2019 has blossomed so fully and efficiently, and with an immediacy that reflects the times in which we find ourselves. Individually, each institution that comprises the Global Conservatoire (GC) educates future artists, arts administrators, educators, and contributing citizens. What the GC, an entirely new type of virtual inter-university, international environment, will do is effectively broaden each of the four partners’ curricular offerings and add a truly global dimension to their students’ learning experience. We are proud to launch the Global Conservatoire and to welcome our students to a new digital age of global learning.”

Contemporary conservatory students seek evermore globally informed and progressive courses, as well as flexible study patterns, greater subject choice, and a variety of delivery styles. The Global Conservatoire partners understand the value of adapting to meet students’ needs. By drawing on world-leading education principles that harness the digital sphere, this exciting partnership will transform the quality and methods of online teaching in performing arts higher education, and, in doing so, bring students heightened digital fluency and an enhanced global perspective.

For more information, please contact:

Jeff Breithaupt
Vice President for Media and Communications, Manhattan School of Music
917.493.4702 | jbreithaupt@msmnyc.edu

About Manhattan School of Music

Founded as a community music school by Janet Daniels Schenck in 1918, today Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is recognized for its more than 900 superbly talented undergraduate and graduate students who come from 44 countries and nearly all 50 states; its innovative curricula and world-renowned artist-teacher faculty that includes musicians from the New York Philharmonic, the Met Orchestra, and the top ranks of the jazz and Broadway communities; and a distinguished community of accomplished, award-winning alumni working at the highest levels of the musical, educational, cultural, and professional worlds.

The School is dedicated to the personal, artistic, and intellectual development of aspiring musicians, from its Precollege students through those pursuing doctoral studies. Offering classical, jazz, and musical theatre training, MSM grants a range of undergraduate and graduate degrees. True to MSM’s origins as a music school for children, the Precollege program continues to offer superior music instruction to 475 young musicians between the ages of 5 and 18. The School also serves some 2,000 New York City schoolchildren through its Arts-in-Education Program, and another 2,000 students through its critically acclaimed Distance Learning Program.
About The Royal College of Music (London)

Founded in 1883, the Royal College of Music (RCM) is a world leading music conservatoire with a prestigious history and contemporary outlook. Our 900 undergraduate and postgraduate students come from over 55 countries and are taught in a dynamic environment, leaving the RCM to become the outstanding performers, conductors, and composers of the future.

For the sixth consecutive year, the RCM was ranked as the top institution in the UK for Performing Arts in the prestigious QS World University Rankings 2021, and top in Europe for the second year running. RCM was also ranked the top UK conservatoire for music in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2019 and top music conservatoire for overall student satisfaction in the 2018 National Student Satisfaction (NSS) Survey according to the Times Higher Education.

RCM professors are leaders in their fields, and, under such expert guidance, RCM students regularly achieve remarkable success around the globe. Among our alumni are composers and performers such as Sir Hubert Parry, Benjamin Britten, Gustav Holst, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Lord Lloyd Webber, Rebecca Clarke, Anna Meredith, Clemency Burton-Hill, Dame Joan Sutherland, Dame Sarah Connolly, Gerald Finley, Sophie Bevan, Louise Alder, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Sir Thomas Allen.

Regular visitors to the RCM include Bernard Haitink, Sir Thomas Allen, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Alina Ibragimova, and Lang Lang. Our recent honorary doctorates include Sir Antonio Pappano, Jonas Kaufmann, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir Bryn Terfel, Steve Reich, and Maxim Vengerov (Polonsky Visiting Professor of Violin).
About the Royal Danish Academy of Music

The Royal Danish Academy of Music (RDAM) is a higher education institution that provides music education at the highest artistic level. The academy benchmarks itself against a number of the leading conservatories and music academies in the world while at the same time collaborating with these institutions to provide students with quality music education.

The academy offers bachelor, master, and advanced postgraduate diploma study programmes taught by a highly specialized faculty in music performance, composition, music production, and music education. The advanced postgraduate diploma programmes allow students to hone and refine their technical skills and artistic mastery, preparing them for prominent and meaningful careers as soloists, ensembles, composers, opera singers, or conductors.

The study environment is highly international and is characterized by a healthy competition-accentuated interaction between the students, Danish and international. The pedagogical approach in teaching activities focuses on each student’s individual development and progress. This is supplemented with projects that allow students to gain valuable real-life experience, both as individual musicians and music industry professionals.

As a metropolitan academy, RDAM has a comprehensive network of national and international cooperation partners in performing arts and related academic disciplines. The academy actively collaborates with several leading Danish cultural institutions, including Copenhagen Phil, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and The Royal Danish Opera. Additionally, RDAM also collaborates with the other artistic higher education institutions under the Ministry of Culture. International cooperation partners include highly regarded artistic networks and education institutions from all over the world. Through these collaborations, RDAM enriches teaching and learning activities and the student’s artistic development
About the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna

The mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna is one of the world’s largest and most renowned universities for music, theater, and film. Over 3,000 students from more than 70 countries enjoy their education in 115 disciplines in the fields of music, performing arts, science, research, and paedagogics. The mdw’s 25 institutes include the Max Reinhardt Seminar and the Vienna Film Academy.

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