European Opera Academy – Competence centre for shared education in opera training Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Opera Academy – Competence centre for shared education in opera training

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Creativity and culture; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

Evidence from various sources shows that opera in Europe is developing from a traditional labour market, with jobs for a limited number of singers in opera houses with a stable amount of steady jobs and a conventional program, to a dynamic cross-arts playground, interdisciplinary and innovative, with contemporary repertoire and fresh ways of approaching tradition, attracting new audiences keen on being culturally engaged in new and unique experiences. This requires HEIs to train their opera students with innovative and more effective approaches, especially with regards to collaborative and entrepreneurial skills that will boost their employability as creative makers of opera, capable to act in a globalized professional field and with the appropriate skills and competences that are required by a flexible and multi-faceted labour market.

This EOALAB Strategic Partnership set out to explore innovative learning and teaching methods (shared education) in the context of new opera making and cross-border education within educational networks. It was initiated by the European Opera Academy, which is a network of European music conservatories (part of Higher Education Institutions) that allows their students to participate in modules organized by all partners of the network. By doing so, the EOA’s goal is to foster entrepreneurial, collaborative, interdisciplinary required skills in order to create increased employability for young graduates who will operate in an ever changing job market.

The project consisted of 7 HEI’s from 7 countries, including approximately 20 teachers and 40 students, plus the AEC, that executed 5 Intensive Study projects, held 20 Transnational Project Meetings of 3 different working groups, had 4 Steering Committee meetings, and 2 Multiplier Events with over 400 people attending, resulting in 3 main tangible results:

1) a Manual on shared education with guidelines and checklists to develop new curricula. In particular, the manual addresses how to manage and balance academic offer and student mobility, how to deal with recognition of specific Erasmus+ study abroad and transfer of results, and it gives advice on the actual development of curricula according to the local needs, constraints and academic culture (fixed and full versus flexible and open). The Manual is available on the website of EOALAB, and includes materials from 2) and 3).

2) Innovative approaches to opera making : policy recommendations for HEls in opera training. In three Intensive Study Programs, in which students and staff of the participating HEIs participated and which took place in Maastricht (2019), Vilnius (2020) and Porto (2021), new ways of opera making and training were explored. The three ISP’s show a clear evolution in the way the HEIs envisioned opera making. The ISP consisted of both traditional processes of opera making, to ‘thinking-out-of-the-box’ in creating three minute opera’s where music students were challenged to make use of modern technologies.
Apart from the ISPs, essays were written in which the tension between the old and the new were discussed. Reflecting on the evolutions in the opera labor market and the role the HEIs take in providing education that increases future graduates’ success in employment on the one hand, and finding the balance in study programs that require students to maintain fundamental skills whilst nurturing the new skills needed for the ongoing experiments in the artistic world.
The IO furthermore proposes policy recommendations for HEIs which can be used as a basis for the internal debate on curriculum renewal.
All three elements – policy recommendations, essays and articles, and micro-operas on video – can be found on the website.

3) a Model for blended teaching activities on opera language teaching. This intensive five day course for teachers at HEI’s who want to teach Singers Russian or Italian serves, as a model for other languages (English, French, German). Besides guidelines for the set-up of a 3-5 days workshop/masterclass with suitable material for Italian and Russian, class materials about e.g. speech techniques, are included. Background interviews and surveys reflecting on the process of trial and error offer information about the choices of the method.

All materials and the 3 results can be found on the website EOALAB.org. The outputs can also be found on the Erasmus Project Results Platform, including some extra dissemination materials as teasers and video materials. The dissemination further took place in two Multiplier events, two congresses of the AEC, one online and one onsite, and through sending newsletters and other channels.

The impact of the project for students became clear from the very first moment they took part and were confronted with new ideas and methods. The HEI’s as they are linked to EOA in the first place, will adapt their curricula to the findings of the project, and new exchanges between several schools have started.

Project Website

http://www.eoalab.org

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 409722,45 Eur

Project Coordinator

STICHTING ZUYD HOGESCHOOL & Country: NL

Project Partners

• INSTITUTO POLITECNICO DO PORTO
• ARTESIS PLANTIJN HOGESCHOOL ANTWERPEN
• LIETUVOS MUZIKOS IR TEATRO AKADEMIJA
• CONSERVATORIO DI MUSICA ARRIGO BOITO
• ASSOCIATION EUROPEENNE DES CONSERVATOIRES, ACADEMIES DE MUSIQUE ET MUSIKHAOCHSCHULEN AISBL
• Jazepa Vitola Latvijas Muzikas akademija
• STOCKHOLMS KONSTNARLIGA HOGSKOLA