Music Department

Today's music education system can be characterized by its focus on  individual development, its preference for specialization in only one area, and its insistence on allowing musicians to only express themselves in one field.  Music education studies has been imprisoned in an impenetrable system of academic compartmentalization and its sense of connection with the real world has been reduced to a bare minimum. Any alternative systems have been unable to flourish or even resist this traditional educational structure. Our goal is to bring to life, develop and expand a collective understanding of music. NHA's understanding of education is founded in a holistic approach to knowledge. This understanding encompasses all different forms of music as well as other art forms in a process of reciprocal learning and teaching. Music and music studies will not just be taught in the form of lecturing, but rather will also include an empirical emphasis on the sociocultural problems that are connected to these studies. We will counter an elitist abstraction from social formations by developing an approach that gives as much focus on the sociological, historical, political, economic and social conditions under which music was formed as a focus on the music itself. We aim to have a department of musicians who at the same time think, speak, debate and share. While students develop and perfect their own individual skills, they will achieve an understanding of open and prepared collective production.

Voice and instrument  education will be implemented under the following headings: studio lessons,  music theory, music history, theory/method lessons, electives and seminars. The goal of studio lessons will be to help a student develop in their chosen field, to promote research in all fields of music, and to develop an inquisitive and critical personality. The chamber choir and chamber music lessons will be offered in an effort to counter the overwhelming of individual personalities by emphasizing “collective production” by “playing and singing together”. This collective approach will not only be used for our studio lessons but rather exemplifies the entire raison d'être of our academy. Music history lessons will prefer to study the progression of music by emphasizing the social processes involved and the interactions with this and other branches of art. Theory/method classes will take on the historical, political, economic and sociological dimensions of music. Elective lessons and seminars will emphasize artistic and scientific holistic production, and will aim to open a space whose intellectual dynamics are focused towards change. Our seminars purpose is to be a central point of thought, discussion and production. The length of study for the music department is three years.