On 19-21 April, the final conference of the HarMA+ project – European landscape of teaching practices and pedagogical innovation in Higher Music Education Institutions (HMEI) – Music theory fields, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, took place in Gdańsk, Poland, gathering 67 music theory teachers and international relations coordinators from 34 HMEIs in Europe.
© Aleksander Szpakowicz
The conference was held in the frame of the HarMA International Seminar event, organised jointly by Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles and Akademia Muzyczna im Stanislawa Moniuszky w Gdansku, and focused on internationalisation, digitisation, innovative teaching and e-learning practices.
The goal of the HarMA International Seminar event, and the HarMA+ project itself (KA 203) is to bring together music theory faculties (harmony, counterpoint, composition, music analysis, ear training teachers) with the ultimate goal of sharing experiences and exchanging about own pedagogical approaches in the field of music theory education.
This third edition of the HarMA International Seminar event, organised on a bi-annual basis, included 16 topic-specific talks, 3 training sessions and 1 special interest group related to innovative teaching practices, new technologies, digitisation and European projects. Following the success of its first editions, the HarMA International Seminar event has become an essential meeting for music theory faculties, fostering international collaboration and providing a single-place meeting dedicated to music theory subjects.
Moreover, on 18 April, the final HarMA+ Transnational Project Meeting took place in Gdańsk, gathering all project partners for a final in-presence meeting prior to the final conference event. The programme included a presentation of the intellectual and practical outputs developed in the frame of the project: namely the development of one online exchange platform, one dynamic EU bibliography, one catalogue of new methodologies and practices, and one multilingual terminology dictionary, all of them embedded within the new project website (https://harmaplus.eu/).
© Aleksander Szpakowicz
AEC, as coordinator of the communication and dissemination of the project outcomes, presented the impact the project has had at the European and international levels, and the results from the dissemination activities developed within the frame of the project. HarMA+ was showcased at several AEC conferences including two dissemination events, at the AEC Annual Congress and General Assembly 2021 in Antwerp, and at the AEC European Platform for Artistic Research in Music 2023 in Copenhagen. In addition, Suzanne Konings (Royal Conservatoire The Hague), external evaluator of the HarMA+ project, highlighted the smooth running of the project activities and strengthened the valuable results and great effort all the partners have put into their respective outputs.
HarMA+ is a strategic partnership funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ programme and coordinated by Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles. To find out more about the project partners and activities, please do not hesitate to contact us at alfonsoguerra@aec-music.eu, visit the HarMA+ project webpage on the AEC website, or the new HarMA+ official website.