The symposium “Embracing Ambiguity” sets out to discuss prospects for research, studies, and professional pursuits
In the past two issues of mdw Magazin, the spectrum of subdisciplines situated at the Department of Music Education Research and Practice (IMP) was given an general introduction along with a look at some of the challenges that currently exist in the music education field. Since the previous instalment was about our degree offerings for future schoolteachers, we now turn our gaze to the programme Music Education – Voice and Instruments (IGP).
This topic might initially call to mind a teaching space at a music school, patient practicing, or your own musical beginnings. Such images, however, cover just a small part of a job description that’s expanded significantly in recent decades due to transformative processes in society and in education policy: instrumental and voice teachers now work in a variety of institutional contexts—be it in music schools, in freelance instructional settings, in cooperation with schools of general education, in music mediation projects, or at the university level. Their activities encompass individual and group lessons, work with ensembles and bands, and responsibilities ranging from teaching music fundamentals to support for lay music-making and on to preparation for music-related professional activities as well as the development of artistic excellence.
Surveying a Dynamic Field of Research
It follows that the boundaries between music educators’ school-based and non-school-based spheres of activity, once clearly delineated, are growing increasingly blurred in real-life professional practice—a development that is clear to see in the realm of research, as well. Examples of research interests pertaining to both would be engagement with musical and aesthetic experiences, the empirical study of music-related learning processes, investigation of (post-)digital musical practices, and critical scrutiny of power relations and institutional areas of tension. A further traditionally important research discourse in IGP is the study of individual musical biographies as they relate to how people acquire music over the course of their lives, what significance musical practice has for them, and the conclusions that can be drawn from this when it comes to facilitating participation in musical culture. We’ve also witnessed the establishment of a broad and nuanced range of research on teaching that has since produced important findings particularly with an eye to the interfaces between the professional contexts of schools of general education and music schools (such as on shaping music-related teaching/learning processes and dealing with heterogeneity) as well as in terms of teachers’ professional self-concepts. And in view of the looming shortage of specialists, the magnitude of which seems quite dramatic, the perspective on educational institutions and managing transitions (between music school and tertiary-level studies as well as between such studies and careers) would seem to be of growing relevance. Processes of societal transformation have also inspired further topics and questions that are likewise currently seeing intensive research—relating to aspects such as the challenges of an increasingly diverse and ageing society, rapid technological developments, multiple simultaneous crises, and a future that appears fragile and open in numerous respects.
Embracing Ambiguity. On the Role of Instrumental and Voice Teaching in Music Education, Education Policy, and Society
So just what does it mean to be an instrumental or voice teacher in an era of societal transformation? This is the overarching question of a symposium that IMP will be staging from 29 to 30 May 2026 in collaboration with the Cologne University of Music and Dance. This event will survey the topic in its full breadth, from research to university studies and careers. The titular “ambiguity” embodies a double-reference to our current situation: instrumental and vocal pedagogy, as a relatively young subdiscipline of music education, has gone through a remarkable process of professionalisation in recent decades. Even so, it remains characterised by a certain openness—recognisable in aspects such as its enormously broad range of professional work and the tension that characterises its status within the university world. This ambivalence can be viewed as a defect but also as a potential: in view of our complex present characterised by rapid change, the challenges associated with an unpredictable future, and increasing scepticism towards a simplified “progress narrative” (Andreas Reckwitz), it is questionable whether professionalisation as a figure of thought still holds true in the sense of a linear development from starting point A (perceived as deficient) to a possible endpoint B.
It is here that the symposium starts in its search for fundamentally different approaches to thinking about IGP’s potential for transformation: What would result if we conceived of this openness as a constitutive characteristic and as a resource? What prospects open up if we view professionalisation as a constant process of striving to deal with ambiguity and working to creatively and productively shape in-between spaces in social, institutional, and artistic contexts? What developmental tendencies can be identified from this standpoint, and what new impulses would result for university studies, research, and professional practice?
Invitation to Dialogue
Questions like these will be discussed at the symposium by researchers concerned with German-language music education and adjacent disciplines, colleagues from the field of specialised instrumental and vocal didactics and from the artistic realm, bearers of responsibility at universities and music schools, and teachers and students. Alongside classic lectures, dialogue-centred formats will provide space for encounters and exchange. The point will be to link research findings with impressions from the professional field and to discuss what the resulting implications would be for shaping studies and careers, for the self-conception of the discipline, and for its present and future positioning at the mdw and in the educational realm at large.
