Thomas Johnston 's profile
My Posts
Transformation and Performance Music Education for Children and Young People | Music Generation Research Fellowship: ’Developing Diversity in Performance Music Education in Ireland’
2014-04-22
Transformation and Performance Music Education for Children and Young People
Description
’The Transformative Potential of Performance Music Education for Children and Young People’ (Presentation on Music Generation Research at Wales International Festival of Performing Arts for Children and Young Audiences)
In this image, I have my ’research hat’ on and am presenting a paper entitled ’The Transformative Potential of Performance Music Education for Children and Young People’ at the Wales International Festival of Performing Arts for Children and Young Audiences where I was invited by Arad Goch Theatre to give a paper on my current research with Music Generation.
This presentation was immensely enjoyable and thought-provoking and was an opportunity to present Music Generation’s work with children and young people to an international audience of Theatre for Young Audiences practitioners. My paper dealt with what the research calls the ’transformative potential of music in the lives of children and young people’ – that is, how learning to play an instrument, listening to, playing, performing, participating, as well as experiencing music as audience can positively impact on and transform the lives of children and young people.
The word ‘transformation’ has emerged in the research as a fitting and powerful word to broadly sum up the broad spectrum of what a young person’s experience of music, and the arts more broadly speaking should be – that is, music as having a positive impact, leading to greater opportunities, creating a sense of identity, achievement, belonging, a sense of meaning and so on. My intention during the paper wasn’t to define what this concept of ‘transformation’ – I’m not actually sure if it’s something that can be defined, as it’s quite elusive - but rather, I hoped to lead the festival audience into considering ’transformation’ in terms of the possibilities that they imagined lie ahead in the lives of children and young people as a result of them having had the opportuntity to engage in music.
No comments added