Sir, - Michael Dervan writes in his article on the proposed new performing arts academy (Arts, April 14th): "If the courses at any future Irish Academy did not match up to what's on offer in other parts of the world, particularly in other EU countries, the cream of Irish musicians would continue its educational exodus in pursuit of the best."
Bearing this in mind, I think it's interesting to observe that between Ireland and Russia, Albania is the only other country in Europe where jazz or non-classical music cannot be studied at third level. Yet Michael Dervan's article implicitly assumes that all of the music teaching at the institution will be classically oriented. If this were to be the case it would be a backward rather than a forward step.
With radical changes in the Junior and Leaving Cert music curricula, there is now a growing demand for non-classically-based music education in Ireland. Although jazz was originally taught in an exclusively oral manner, over the past 40 years a method of teaching it in academic institutions has also been developed and this has achieved widespread recognition and success throughout the world. There are now many colleges, universities, conservatories and academic institutions teaching the music not only in North and South America, but also in Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. The benefits and necessity of offering jazz education courses are being increasingly recognised, even by such hitherto conservative organisations such as the Associated Board, which has recently introduced a jazz curriculum.
A musician who comes through this system is prepared for work in a wide variety of musical environments. A 1997 survey in Holland found that over 80 per cent of musicians who studied jazz at third level remained as active performers in the music after the completion of their studies. This showed jazz to have the highest success rate in the performing arts in Holland in terms of the ratio of people becoming employed in the discipline for which they had been trained. I have been teaching this music at Newpark for more than 10 years and we have two full-time courses up to diploma level which are very successful. Last week, for example, we were visited by a faculty from the legendary Berklee College of Music in Boston, who did workshops and scholarship auditions at the school. Yet we receive no support of any kind from the Department of Education.
Now that the Department, through the new Junior and Leaving Cert Music curricula, has introduced the possibility of studying jazz at second level, it is surely incumbent on it to make the final leap and introduce it at third level. The proposed new academy would seem to me to be the ideal way to address the reality of at least a 20th-century music education, even though we will soon be in the 21st. - Yours, etc.,
Ronan Guilfoyle,
Jazz & Contemporary Music Course Director,
Newpark Music Centre,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.