Reforming the conservatory

Well, the NZSM as we know it is pretty much dead. If people had listened to me 2 years ago when the funding cuts that threatened the Theatre and Music departments were announced, they'd have survived. Every musician, incl. the pop stars and rockers, would agree that we need a world-class conservatory to teach instrumental and vocal music. If the government accepts this, and creates a fund or persuades universities to jointly invest - which was the model for the NZSM up until 2015 - then we can have one. However, it needs to be fundamentally different in order to qualify for funding. - Four major departments: classical, jazz, traditional and commercial. Each one would have performance and composition degrees for a range of instruments, and actually bother to teach vocal music. I will never return, as my teaching practice is a one-on-one, small groups thing. As an outsider, I have a more impartial eye, and I left in part cos my interests weren't being respected in that era. Professional development should involve paying the students for being in the orchestra, and shouldn't involve quid pro quo fiefdoms where teachers use students as slaves. Traditional typically means Western folk, but it'd also include the Asian stuff that Gareth and Jack brought to the fold, and should also include the Indian stuff that Tristan knows. Commercial = musicals, film music, contemporary pop, hip-hop, R'n'B etc. Dunedin is probably the closest to this ideal atm. - Then there's a fifth department, which is academic music studies. Musicology, ethnomusicology, music therapy ... that sorta stuff. - Because of how much I hated the hierarchy, I have a radical solution to humble my peers. Term limits of 6 years per person, then they have to leave for at least 3 years. None of the current faculty, to my knowledge, are genuine all-rounders who could teach all of those four disciplines, so they need to respect that and take that sabbatical time to forge connections outside the conservatory rather than pretending to be masters of all in order to preserve their cushy five-six figure salary. I'd also make it so that professors can't receive APRA, CNZ or any other kind of funding. They're making enough, and they can still receive commissions from bodies or people that aren't being propped up by established taxpayer-based funding sources. Their salary is already being largely paid by the taxpayer, so that's double-dipping. This is mostly about the hegemony that Michael and others have built up, but also applies to the fifth department. New music didn't have to be pretentious wanks, but that's what happened because certain people were repeatedly rewarded with funds while others weren't. - Those are my proposals for reform, and I bloody hope that the stalkers read them.