In Monday’s (5/14) Globe and Mail (Toronto), Robert Everett-Green writes, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? If you’re running the Royal Conservatory of Music, you go to New York, pitch a well-tested system of teaching and exams to the venerable concert hall, launch a joint venture across the United States, and get ready for your enrollment to double in five years. At a time when many cultural organizations struggle to stay on their feet, the 125-year-old conservatory is expanding aggressively, through a year-old alliance with Carnegie, an ambitious plan for online education, and an arts-based education program aimed at keeping at-risk kids in school. The Con, as it’s affectionately known, opened a much-enlarged Toronto facility in 2008, and a year later launched a major concert series in a superb new hall, which tonight hosts a birthday gala featuring pop star Feist and opera soprano Measha Brueggergosman. ‘We think the brand name is very powerful, and we believe we have the best system,’ says Peter Simon, the Conservatory’s president. … In the past year, he says, 70 music schools and more than 3,000 teachers in the U.S. have signed up for the Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory Achievement Program, which will deliver the same kind of syllabus and graded testing used by 500,000 Canadians annually.”
Posted May 15, 2012
