Call for participants: Societal engagement as part of studying in Sibelius Academy

22.5.2025 0 Like 0 kommenttia

Musicians can consider themselves as public professionals who make a significant impact on society. In what ways can the professional musician education offered at the Sibelius Academy make space for societal engagement as part of the studies, and make broader connections between social, political, and ecological topics and music professionalism?

We invite students and teachers at the Sibelius Academy to take part in a research project in the academic year 2025–2026 to explore the topics that can include (but are not limited to):

• Taking music performances into public spaces,
• Making music for, with, and in local communities and groups,
• Including communality and collectivity in music performance and education,
• Music making or performance that highlights societal issues 
• Thinking musically about individual and social identity 
• Reconsidering the social and professional roles of musicians,
• Incorporating how any of the above approaches change the musician or musical practice.

There are different ways to participate in the project

• We invite teachers of courses that already (even partially) address topics such as those listed above, or similar. We would like to observe these courses and conduct individual interviews and/or group discussions with interested students and teachers. This way, the research collaboration is integrated in already existing coursework and does not require excessive extra work or resources from your side.
• We invite students who create performances (solo, ensemble, cross-arts, sound/video installation, etc.) that align with some of the aims given above. We would like to observe these performances, and conduct reflections with the performers. We also offer to professionally record these performances for use by the participants.
• We organise a festival on 15 April 2026 in Musiikkitalo and nearby venues where students and teachers (and other invited collaborators) can present or perform work relating to the abovementioned aims or topics. The performances will be professionally recorded, and we hope to conduct interviews or discussions with the artists involved. The event will be open to the public and hopes to provide a platform for supporting students’ artistic work. 

About the Performing the political research project

Please read more about the research project ‘Per­form­ing the Po­lit­i­cal: Pub­lic Ped­a­gogy in Higher Mu­sic Ed­u­ca­tion’