Higher music education, India and ethnography: a case study of KM music conservatory students

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the status of higher music education in India through in-depth interviews with KM Music Conservatory students. KM Music Conservatory (KM) is a private higher music education institution based in Chennai, India, accredited by Middlesex University, UK. Students enrolled on KM’s diploma programme study Western art music, Hindustani classical music and audio technology, and can also take part in a variety of extracurricular musical activities. This article argues that students situationally curate valuations of higher music education as well as their own musical and educational identities by selectively drawing on a range of narratives that synchronise local and international factors. Two further points are argued: first, whilst we must be wary of the perpetuation of neo-colonial and neo-liberal ideologies through the increasing internationalisation and privatisation of higher music education in India, we must also acknowledge the ways in which more localised motivations and factors shape music education’s significance; and second, that ethnographic research is a valuable tool for developing informed understandings of and approaches to higher music education for both local and international students, teachers and institutions.