Understanding what we mean by portfolio training in music

Abstract

Although musicians have always had portfolio careers, the discourse in conservatoires around training musicians specifically for portfolio careers is relatively new. This is partly because of increasing opportunities in the workplace for entrepreneurial and multi-faceted musicians and partly – in the UK at least – because of educational policy and practice. This article incorporates narratives provided by professional portfolio musicians and students and teachers at a single conservatoire in the UK, to illustrate disjunctures between the expectations fostered by conservatoires undergoing changes in their culture and the lived experiences of teachers and students responding, in real time, to changes both within the conservatoire and in the wider society. One of the key findings of the research is that teachers and students have qualitatively different conceptions of what it means for students to be trained for portfolio careers. The paper concludes by considering the implications of their different understandings for initiatives to reform conservatoire curricula.