The inaugural Asia-Pacific Music Summit—a meeting convened in Sydney, Australia for the purpose of creating closer ties between music schools from Asia and the Pacific Rim—has just concluded. Those attending the April 2-5 summit have established a new Pacific Alliance of Music Schools, whose members include China’s Beijing Central Conservatory of Music as well as conservatories from Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. Also represented in the alliance are two U.S. conservatories: the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. The partners in the alliance have agreed to meet annually. Among the topics discussed were course programs, student exchanges, industry collaborations, funding models, and performance platforms. David Stull, dean of the San Francisco Conservatory, commented, “Global interchange is the future of music and education,” while Beijing Central Conservatory of Music President Wang Cizhao said, “The inter-conservatory exchange will become a vital part of running a conservatory with the international development of music education across all countries.”
Posted April 16, 2014
