Orchestral playing is a common form of ensemble playing within higher music education. However, students sometimes participate in amateur orchestras outside of their formal education. This study focuses on what students learned by participating and what the educational institutions gained. The study is a case study of a music education institution and four amateur orchestras and consisted of eight interviews with conductors and administrators. The study shows that learning in the amateur orchestra is similar to learning in formal education contexts, such as developing knowledge of repertoire, in which both institutions contribute to the student’s overall knowledge. Nevertheless, some aspects are better learnt outside of formal education such as educational roles, the creation of a professional identity as a musician and knowledge of different social contexts.

Although orchestral playing is a dominant practice within Western classical music, and one that many students participate in from a young age, some students do not have adequate opportunities to participate. Since harp students often come to orchestral playing later than other instrumentalists, harp teachers are concerned with enabling their students to learn orchestral playing in a relatively short time. For this study, six orchestral harpists who are also teachers were interviewed. The findings show that harp teachers intentionally taught orchestral playing during one-to-one lessons, aiming to prepare their students to continue learning within the orchestral context. They aimed to bridge the gap between lessons and practice, methodically preparing them musically, technically, practically and emotionally for the complex orchestral environment. While students of other instruments might acquire this complex knowledge from extended orchestral experience, student harpists must learn it in a relatively short time. These harp teachers’ descriptions of their teaching practice shed light on how orchestral playing is learned by all instrumentalists.

The focus in this study is the relationships between one tertiary music academy and four amateur orchestras. In this study the kinds of cooperation that exist, how students benefit from participating in amateur orchestras, and how cooperation can be further developed is identified. Four administrators from the academy and four conductors were interviewed. The study shows that the bases for cooperation are informal arrangements and personal contacts between individuals. What the interviewees considered as the main benefit for students was that participating in amateur orchestras provided opportunities for orchestral playing that were lacking within their formal education. Policy decisions were based on the interviewees ideas about students’ benefits, which could be social, musical and professional. The interviewees also respected the students’, and teachers’, autonomy in choosing their own musical and professional paths. Both the academy administrators and the amateur orchestra conductors value the cooperative relationships between academy and amateur orchestras.

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