Royal Conservatory of Music's exam system to become standard for U.S. music schools

From the Globe and Mail  Saturday March 26

When New York’s famed Carnegie Hall decided the United States’ patchwork of state music programs should have a national system to unite them, its leaders gave little thought to starting from scratch. Instead, they turned immediately to Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music.

At a Saturday conference of thousands of music teachers in Milwaukee, Wis., the two institutions will announce the Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory Achievement Program, an extension of the conservatory’s existing exam system intended to be the new U.S. standard for music training and learning.

The goal is to increase participation in music throughout the U.S., partly by emphasizing music’s central role in the development of innovative, healthy, happy societies. But it may also prove a welcome source of revenue if it catches on.

“It comes back to the goal to make participation in music a central part of the daily lives of every person,” said Peter Simon, president of the RCM.

Carnegie first commissioned consultants to explore the appetite for creating national exams and curricula. The study showed that schools, teachers and parents were eager, and tapped the RCM as having the most reputable and applicable system. The two institutions had no formal relationship, but Simon flew to New York last fall and discussions moved quickly.

“It was pretty much: Here’s the study, we want to do this, we think you guys have a great program, let’s do it,” Simon recalled. “And at that moment I said, ‘I love it, we’re off.’”

Carnegie’s education program is substantial and expanding through an ongoing $200-million (U.S.) renovation, which will carve out a 5,600-square-metre education wing. The project has similarities to the RCM’s recent revamping of its own building in Toronto.

“We totally share the same vision,” said Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director.

National programs in several countries have shown that the sense of progress and achievement born of having a national standard is instrumental in keeping students engaged in music, says Jennifer Snow, who splits time as the RCM’s director of teacher pedagogy and a professor of piano at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The examination program is designed to be used locally by students of all ages and skill levels, a doubly important strategy as music classes struggle to survive in cash-strapped schools.

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