Teaching Artistry as Excellence
How we share the work of teaching artistry with the world points to a deeper truth.
About eight of us were gathered around a rectangular conference table on a rainy Boston afternoon. Those of us in the room represented staff at the New England Conservatory primarily responsible for guiding students through academic and career advising. We were faced with a pressing challenge: we were building the first teaching artistry program at a major conservatory in the United States and yet no one - faculty, current students, incoming students, the broader music field - seemed to agree on what teaching artistry was.
As someone who has devoted a lot of thought and writing to the definition of teaching artistry, I tried to sit in the back of this conversation and just listen to other’s ideas. These colleagues in a lot of ways were the first test cases in a pursuit to define teaching artistry, because they were involved in helping students pursue NEC’s concentration in the subject, but perhaps didn’t identify as teaching artists themselves. I was curious what their perception of what teaching artistry was and how we could address the challenge of messaging a definition to our students, faculty, and the field.
We fairly quickly agreed that it wasn’t our job, at least that specific group in that gathering, to come up with a collective definition for teaching artistry. However, we could brainstorm ways that we could better highlight our already existing programs and create channels to share a definition once we had one. During a back and forth about marketing strategy, one of my colleagues said something striking: “If we want to increase awareness of teaching artistry then we need to elevate examples of excellence in teaching artistry to the same level of importance as we do excellent musicianship.”
If you look in newsletters and social media content from conservatories, orchestras, and performance series (including NEC), most of the messaging celebrates the performances and musical accomplishments of students and professional musicians associated with those organizations. If teaching artistry is mentioned at all, it’s probably a footnote towards the bottom. While this observation about our marketing is true and an opportunity for changing the conversation, this idea about elevating excellence in teaching artistry stuck with me afterwards, because I believe it extends deeper than just how we advertise the work to others.
The implication of the common marketing strategy for performing arts institutions is that teaching artistry and the “core work” of producing artistic excellence are viewed differently. Maybe you substitute “teaching artistry” for “community engagement” or “outreach” but the gist is that teaching artistry is valued to a lesser degree than musical and artistic excellence. Now this hierarchy may not actually be true, but that’s the association inspired by the marketing strategy and appearances can unintentionally affect reality. This is not a challenge faced only by NEC, but by most arts organizations across the board. I believe that there are two problems with this framing: one that teaching artistry and musical excellence are valued differently and two, most critically, that teaching artistry and musical excellence are viewed as separate in the first place. Excellent teaching artistry is synonymous with musical excellence.
I’m fond of making the argument that developing a robust teaching artistry practice makes you a better artist, because teaching artistry demands excellent musicianship and provides a lens outside the practice room for making improvements. I once heard a story from a very successful string quartet in which they were doing a school performance of a Bartok string quartet. In a moment of great teaching artistry, they told a third grade class that the next movement (in which Bartok was trying to imitate the sound of an insect swarm) was about a certain kind of animal. They played the movement which featured lots of soft dynamics, fast notes, and sul ponticello - placing the bow close to the bridge of the instrument to create a thin, piercing sound - all of which invokes the image Bartok had in mind. After finishing the movement they asked the kids what animal they thought Bartok was writing about. The first student they called on confidently explained, “Well that was about a herd of elephants stomping around!” The only response from the string quartet: well clearly we have to go practice some more.
Humor is always rooted in truth. The deeper truth that makes this story funny is that excellent teaching artistry begets excellent musicianship. They are not mutually exclusive. Digging into teaching artistry, learning how to connect with the community through music and activate the creativity in the room in pursuit of collective growth and change is not a detriment to the art we create, but a strength. Teaching artistry is essential to keeping art vital in our society.
It’s a no-brainer to highlight excellent teaching artistry in the messaging about our collective work, because doing so will begin to break down this false distinction between teaching artistry and performance/composition/competition/etc. We can change the narrative around what artists do in our society and help to create new opportunities and responsibilities for the artists of tomorrow to do the work they are uniquely positioned to do. We just have to make it a priority.
Teaching artistry has an awareness challenge. It’s difficult to share the work with others, especially those outside the field of the arts, since it’s something that naturally resists being easily defined. Whole books have been written specifically with the purpose of sharing with those outside the field what teaching artistry is and what it can do. I hope that my own writing also contributes to that conversation as well. However, teaching artistry isn’t just a pathway for creating a viable career in music, it also is an effective method for creating more excellence in the art that we make. So highlighting excellent teaching artistry also means that we’re showing excellent musicianship! More importantly, if we prioritize developing excellent training for teaching artists, we are going to continue to produce that which we already value: artistic and musical excellence, perhaps at levels of relevance and community impact that far surpass what we already do.