“Under an ambitious makeover plan announced Thursday by President David H. Stull, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music is poised to build a new residence hall for students near its current Civic Center home, to expand its partnerships with other local arts organizations and to infuse its curriculum with a new range of interdisciplinary offerings,” writes Joshua Kosman in Friday’s (3/28) San Francisco Chronicle. “Stull said that a capital campaign had already raised $17 million toward the cost of the new building…. Part of the new curriculum will be a program to bring in visiting professors from top American universities to teach courses in other academic areas…. The new building … will be central to the program, Stull said. ‘If you’re a scholar on sabbatical, how can you turn down the chance to teach one course and live rent-free in San Francisco for a semester?’ The plan also involves forging new alliances with the training programs of the San Francisco Opera and with SFJazz…. New training in music technology and in the business aspects of a musical career are also in the works.… Stull said, ‘Musicians … have to be entrepreneurial, they have to know how to seize audiences, and they have to play better than they did 30 years ago.’ ”
Posted March 28, 2014
