‘What’s Good and What’s Bad About Music Education’

Press, 3 July 1985, Page 18

‘What’s Good and What’s Bad About Music Education’

Professor Bennett Reimer is the principal speaker at the conference on music and education to be held in Christchurch next month. Professor Reimer is the professor of music and the chairman of the Music Education Department at Northwestern University. He is recognised internationally as a leading writer on music education. The professor has written “A Philsophy of Music Education,” “The Experience of Music,” and the series of textbook “Silver Burdett Music.” He lectures regularly throughout the United States and Canada on the arts in education. Professor Reimer will attend the conference as part of a visit to New Zealand and Australia. Among the topics on which he will lecture while in this country are Why Music Education Matters, What’s Good and What’s Bad About Music Educa-

tion,All the Arts For All the Children, Cultivating Aesthetic Behaviour, and For What Should Music Educators be Accountable? His keynote address to the conference will be towards the Transformation of Music Education. The other principal overseas speaker is Professor Dieter Zimmerschied, director of the faculty of Music Education at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart. He has delivered a number of addresses on music education topics. He was a founder of the Yamaha Music Teaching System in West Germany. The main paper Professor Zimmerschied will give at the conference is The Survival of Music Education in an Age of Mass Media and Microelectronics. The other overseas speakers are Professor Leon Burton of the University of Hawaii, Mr Ezio Itoh of Japan, the founder of the Yamaha Teaching System,

Professor Martin Lamb from the University of Toronto, and Professor Donald Michael and Mr Bill Irwin of the United States. The four day conference at the University of Canterbury, from August 23 to 26, will be chaired by Sir Frank

Callaway from Western Australia. He was ’ the foundation president of the Australian Society for Music Education and the international president of the Society for Music Education. He has also been president of the International

Music Council ol U.N.E.S.C.O. The conference will look at every aspect of music education from early childhood music to music at all school levels, music for the handicapped, vocal music, instrumental music, composition, research, and resources. The conference is called Music 85 and has the theme, New Directions in Music Education. New Zealand music educators will also contribute to the conference. The three days will be interspersed with concerts and recitals, in the evening and at lunchtime. The conference has commissioned a composition from Australian composer Elaine Dobson suited for massed performances at the conference. The annual meeting of the New Zealand Society for Music Education will be held on the. last day of the conference.