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Associate Professor Deborah Rifkin (Music Theory) publishes “Strategies for Revising Music Curricula for the Twenty-First Century” in The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (2020).Contributed by Deborah Rifkin on 04/21/20
As chair of the Ithaca College’s School of Music Faculty Council (2014-17) and lead facilitator of their curriculum review, Deborah Rifkin shares the tremendous administrative learning curve there was to the process. She not only contributes to the national conversation about curriculum reform in music schools, but also how to help other faculty leaders build holistic, successful processes for change that take into account the pragmatic structural issues, as well as the less formalized relational and cultural ones.
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In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of a need to update music curriculum to better prepare musicians for the careers and needs of the 21st century. There are increasing demands for today’s musicians to be entrepreneurially savvy, technologically adept, and cross-culturally responsive and inclusive. In addition, there is mounting interest to cultivate general creativity and integrative learning. While the new century requires new skills, there is a concomitant expectation that today’s musicians be equally or even more adept at traditional areas of expertise, including technical skills required for artistic expression in performance, and general musicianship and analysis. This essay examines the challenges to curricular review and describes a way forward based upon best practices of organizational change and transforming institutional cultures.