Music, Higher Education, and Society: Leading Change Through Music’s Essential Goodness

This volume asserts that institutional teaching, study, administration, and performance of music should derive from essential goodness: the transcendent value embodied in meaning-making that is manifest through holistic cognitive, creative, kinesthetic, productive, and expressive reality.

The classical music ecosystem suffers from a legacy of survival, rather than flourishing across increasingly diverse audiences among whom personal and shared meaning is the crux of perceived value. Myers calls for a renaissance in professional education and practice that embeds rigorous and disciplined adherence to essential goodness as a non-negotiable premise. Change leadership is essential if classical music and musicians are to offer society the value it deserves through the classical arts, and administrators, boards, funders, and artists must adopt attitudes of service to this greater good in order to invite and lead participatory, co-creative engagement. Through critical analysis of the longstanding status quo, Myers offers powerful suggestions for change beginning in higher education and flowing through applications across society.

Contextualizing music higher education within wider ecosystems of teaching and practice, this book shows how leaders can embrace strategic change as a positive opportunity and offers new models for addressing contemporary challenges in a mission-driven way, including preparing musicians for careers and engaging communities.

David E. Myers is professor emeritus and retired director of the University of Minnesota School of Music. His scholarship focus is lifespan learning, arts leadership, and arts policy. He is co-author of Redefining Music Studies in an Age of Change: Creativity, Diversity, and Integration (2017).