WHERE IS RESPONSIBILITY IN MUSIC'S AMBIGUITY?

Paul Craenen, Ph.D. Professor at Royal Conservatoire in The Hague Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA), Leiden University, Netherlands

Music offers a flexible medium for responding to and contributing to social transformation. It can reflect changing values, express emotional involvement, inspire courage and bravery, and mobilize people to take collective action. Music can also play an active role in peace-building, offer solace, or provide a temporary refuge from harsh realities. But the adaptability and openness of music can also lead to ambiguity. The performance of a musical work, song, or tune can unite individuals into a shared identity while simultaneously reinforcing divisions between groups.

Music's ambiguous power raises critical questions about the ethical responsibilities of listeners, music makers, and music institutions. Western art music is often valued as an abstract and autonomous art form, which seems to preclude direct engagement with the world. In this paper, I argue that music education institutions do not necessarily have to choose between “artivism” and the values of musical autonomy. However, they have a responsibility to foster awareness of the ethical dimensions inherent to all music-making and to equip emerging musicians with the competencies needed for socially conscious and meaningful artistic practice.

Biography

Paul Craenen is a composer and researcher at the intersection of artistic practice, education, and artistic research. He studied piano and chamber music at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven and obtained his PhD from Leiden University (2011) with artistic research on the status of the performing body in contemporary composed music. His book Composing under the Skin. The Music-making Body at the Composer’s Desk (2014) was published by Leuven University Press. From 2012 to 2018, he served as director of Musica Impulse Centre, a Flemish arts organisation dedicated to music education and participation. Since 2018, he has been head of the Lectorate Music, Education & Society at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. He is also an Assistant Professor and lecturer at Leiden University.  His current research examines changing roles of musical expertise in society and their influence on curriculum development in higher music education.