The Russian Music Education System: A Return to its Roots

The Russian system of musical education, one of the oldest and most respected in the world, is today passing through a crucial stage in its history: a return to the national foundations on which a young professional musician is trained. The contemporary educational model is intended to absorb the best of the Russian school of performance while also taking account of global trends in the development of education in academic music.
The established list of principal focus areas in professional musical education, exhaustive as it may seem, continues to be supplemented by programmes in demand at this new stage in the evolution of academic music both in Russia and worldwide. The successful experience of creative institutions abroad, bound to their Russian counterparts by strong partnerships of many years, has a significant role to play in this process.
The dialogue now developing dynamically between musicians of Russia, China, and the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States is entering a significant new stage, leading to joint educational programmes and large-scale festivals and forums whose ultimate aim is to create a single international system of professional qualifications geared to the particular character of academic musical education.