Musicology to fire music teachers

Musicology students’ lessons in practical music skills will be reduced from 11,500 to 7,300 hours a year. This is according to a new programme description at the Department of Musicology, that will result in the sacking of 5-7 full-time staff members.

Faculty staff fear that the new programme description will lead students to believe they are getting a musical education when they will be getting a more theoretical one.

“We are now moving even further away from being able to deliver the competencies that the programme description stipulates” says Morten Hjelt, song instructor.

Debate on theory vs. practice

The programme description comes in the middle of a wider debate at the Department of Musicology about the balance between theory and practice.

The professors in song, piano and choir management are disheartened by recent developments. The courses in the program are meant to support each other, they say, and if the students are weak in song or piano, they will come out weak in other areas such as choir management.

Mette Sandbye, the director of the Department of Art and Cultural Studies, IKK, which includes musicology, defends the programme changes: “We are not a school for performing arts. And we’ve just set the direction a bit further towards academia. Musicology is not the music conservatory,” she says.

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