This paper explores the interrelationship between performance teachers' professional identity and the various forms of professional knowledge they bring to their work. The data derive from an ethnographic case study conducted across a period of 12 weeks in each of two distinct music training institutions in Greece Á a University Music Department and a Conservatoire. A total of 28 teachers participated in the study across institutions (Conservatoire, n 018; Music Department, n 010) and within each institutional sample four teachers were observed during their teaching and performing practices. Institutional documents provided contextual information. Findings showed that performance teachers drew on different forms of professional knowledge in their teaching practice in accordance with the construction of the more valued identity in their workplace as either a teacher or a performer. Also evident was that a particular identity and forms of professional knowledge were foregrounded at the point where teacher and performer identities met or separated. The development of a new type of professionalism at the interface where performer and teacher identities meet thereby empowering teachers to take on roles and responsibilities that would extend their professional stories of self is discussed.

The use of music technology in the enhancement of young pianists’ musical improvisations has been scarcely explored in instrumental music teaching and learning research. In the present study, 19 piano pupils aged 6–10 from the UK and Greece used an interactive improvisation system called Musical Interaction Relying On Reflexion (MIROR)-Impro for six weeks in order to enhance their improvisational skills. This system engages pupils in a musical dialogue, answering in the same style as the pupil’s input, creating a reflection of the user’s own musical ideas. Children participating in the study were drawn from a notation-based and classical piano education background, and had various levels of piano expertise. Four case studies are presented here in detail. Results indicate that the system enhances young pianists’ capability musically to explore and improvise, and several further questions are raised regarding the possible ways the system can be used in practice in the piano lesson.

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This paper draws on the metaphor of 'workplace landscape' to highlight the role of institutional values, evidenced within a Greek University Music Department and a MusicConservatoire, in the construction of musical performance teachers' professional identity. Underpinned by a social constructionist framework and within an ethnographic case study approach, the findings revealed that, on the one hand, participating teachers were constrained by the 'cultural scripts' within their workplaces, and on the other, that they utilised and appropriated these cultural tools in constructing their professional identity and practice. The findings imply that advanced music training institutions should engage more radically in a critical rethinking of their 'workplace landscapes' as settings for professional identity construction in order to ensure that musical identities are most effectively nurtured. I n t r o d u c t i o nPerformance teachers (i.e. those who engage in teaching musical performance students at an advanced level) could be considered advanced music training institutions' greatest assets, as they stand at the interface of the transmission of knowledge and values. On the one hand, instrumental teaching practices are organised as a one-to-one contact that has been likened to a 'master-apprentice' approach to teaching (Jørgensen, 2000;Nerland, 2007), where the teacher becomes the 'significant other' for the students involved (Froehlich, 2002, p. 153). To this end, previous research has described and analysed, developed and evaluated teaching models, approaches and strategies within music lessons (Young et al., . On the other hand, and within the context of advanced music training, the significance of this professional role is realised also through the high positions teachers occupy on account of their artistic endeavours as performing artists in music communities beyond the institution (Kingsbury, 1988;Nielsen, 1999). Research indicates that performance teachers consider themselves as being more 'musicians' than 'teachers', thereby focusing on 'performerteachers' careers (Mills, 2004a'performerteachers' careers (Mills, , 2004b, and seeking to reveal the impact of professional discourses on the teaching practice itself (Nerland, 2007).