What should music school of the near future look like? Personally I think it should expand it’s field a little bit. I think that looking at the composers that we all know and love (Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, etc.) is very important so we get a base of where it all comes from, however I think that we could be more inclusive in the way we learn about music.

To this day music history is quite white washed and male dominated. This almost definitely comes from the fact that in the times that most of what we study comes from the world was very sexist and racist so only the music written and performed by white men was accepted. However in today’s society it has become very important to acknowledge those who have been repressed and discriminated against. In more recent years there have been plenty of women and people of colour who have become composers and I think that we should begin accepting and playing their music more even though it is not from the original time period of those styles of music.

Today’s education system tries to put more emphasis on making sure that we are aware of all the different minorities and the struggles that come with being a part of one of said groups, but that area of education hasn’t quite spread to the music departments and the odd occasion I have heard about non traditional composers and how the music world specifically affected them it always feels a little bit forced and awkward. I think that this is because music teachers aren’t trained to incorporate this element of education, yet school boards will change curriculums to implement it without telling them how. Of course that particular comment pertains more to high school education, but I think it should be implemented into post secondary education as well. It could be very beneficial to include in a course similar to this one to start to include more information about discrimination in music, and how it has started to be overcome.