Nation, gender, and classical music on higher music education institution websites

Abstract

Classical music is an artform that can, symbolically and materially, construct ideas about nation and gender. Higher music education institutions are central to classical music production and shapes in particular the gendered nature of music and musicianship by gendering instruments and constructing notions of feminine and masculine styles of music. Further, the repertoire performed in higher classical music education has displayed elements of patriotism and nationalism. The aim of this article is to investigate how three European higher music education institutions – the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Tallinn, Estonia; the Sibelius Academy at the University of the Arts, Helsinki, Finland; and the Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, Hungary – represent nation, gender, and classical music on their websites. The material analyzed here consists of selected multimodal pages from the institutions’ websites: video, text, links, and pictures. They are analyzed in a discourse-theoretical manner focusing on the construction of nation, gender, and classical music. Conclusions discuss the (white) male European master as integral to the heritage of classical music on the websites as well as differences in how the institutions present themselves as ‘national’. The article illustrates how contemporary classical music higher education in Europe relies on representations of national and masculine traditions despite being part of current European Union higher education initiatives promoting internationalization and gender equality.