Composition, Policy, and the Formation of Agency

Abstract

This chapter argues that while at first glance music education policy and music composition may seem an odd pairing, when framed through a lens of critical and progressive practice the strangeness disappears. The chapter illustrates a pushback at traditionalist, Eurocentric narratives, arguing that in some ways, apprehensions around “policy” mirror hesitancies around “composing”—a similar narrowness promoting misconceptions about who can do what and how and to what end. What can be heard, instead, is an invitation for music teachers in all educational levels to reimagine their roles and (re)sound music education as a space for voice, agency, and social change. Situating itself within larger—and now acute—social, racial, and cultural demands placed by a need to change, this chapter explores avenues through which music education may be ready to enact curricular policies that forego “conveyor belt” approaches (Stone, 2011) to recurring challenges such as music teacher preparation diversity, pedagogical innovation, and program relevance. The chapter presents three field cases that exemplify innovative dispositions and provides a critique of music teacher education programs in relation to NASM accreditation policy. Specifically, we use policy as an analytical lens to articulate how composition, understood broadly, can serve as a convincing example of “institutional innovation capable of linking the subject in a creative relationship with an [renewed] institutional environment.”