What Kind of Music Do You Like? Art and innocence in the conservatoire – Keynote Speech by Dominic Murcott

Music conservatoires have had ample time to catalogue, quantify and package classical music and it’s education. An underlying tension remains however between those who are dedicated to preserving the canon and those who seek to challenge and develop it.Have we forgotten that this music was once new and dangerous or are we simply happy for history to define quality so we don’t have to question it? Derek Bailey describes European classical music as having a ‘petrifying effect’ on all it touches.Do we really want to subject the freedoms of popular music to this system or can it bring a much-needed breath of fresh air?

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What Kind of Music Do You Like? Art and innocence in the conservatoire – Keynote Speech by Dominic Murcott

Music conservatoires have had ample time to catalogue, quantify and package classical music and it’s education. An underlying tension remains however between those who are dedicated to preserving the canon and those who seek to challenge and develop it.Have we forgotten that this music was once new and dangerous or are we simply happy for history to define quality so we don’t have to question it? Derek Bailey describes European classical music as having a ‘petrifying effect’ on all it touches.Do we really want to subject the freedoms of popular music to this system or can it bring a much-needed breath of fresh air?