Challenging Classical Music’s Genre Conventions: Findings from a Project on Youth Voice in Instrumental Education

Abstract

This article explores classical music education through analysing findings from a project on embedding ‘youth voice’ within instrumental teaching and learning. Drawing on theorizations of classical music as a genre, I describe how the young people in this project saw classical music’s genre conventions as working against a youth voice approach. The article also outlines the ways in which youth voice was shaped through social relations in this space as well as the ‘institutional ecology’ of music education. I argue that embedding youth voice approaches in instrumental education will only be effective if the genre itself is open to transformation.