Art is invaluable to society. Musicians and dancers act as cultural ambassadors who express society's collective emotions and experiences through their art. Whether for inspiration, motivation or emotion, music and dance have the unique power to unite people from different backgrounds and promote understanding between individuals.
Royal Conservatoire The Hague educates musicians and dancers who know how to combine high artistic values with an open inquisitive attitude. Because art plays an important role in our society, our students are encouraged to be aware of social problems and challenges. This allows them to make a valuable contribution, for example with participatory social activities that often take place outside the walls of the conservatoire. Our students are engaged and reflective, through, for example, concerts for various audiences or collaborations with different groups in society.
Service to society - in the curriculum
Below you can find examples of activities within our curriculum that encourage students to step outside the walls of the conservatoire and make valuable connections with the city.
Over 100 second-year bachelor students from the various departments within the conservatoire start their academic year with the Entrepreneurial Bootcamp: Explore New Playgrounds. During this project week in cooperation with Theatre De Regentes, small teams of students investigate how music can be meaningful in society. Within four days, they create musical performances, workshops or interventions at special locations in the Segbroek district.
Students create performances for among others visitors to the Oud Eik & Duinen cemetery, residents of Weigeliaplein fighting to keep their homes, Segbroek police station, the Pakistani Muslim community of Minhaj-ul-Quran mosque, migrants in Segbroek library and residents of Jonker Frans nursing home. Students are often asked to continue collaborations with the various organisations or perform in the regular programming of Theatre De Regentes. To get an impression, see a video of this project below.
All bachelor students at the Royal Conservatoire take an Educational Skills study programme for eighteen months in their second and third years of study. They are introduced to and gain experience in music education in the broadest sense of the word.
Students receive lessons on various aspects of teaching but also do practical assignments such as visiting activities in the field. Examples include a rehearsal of a learning orchestra in which children from deprived neighbourhoods participate, a rehearsal of a senior citizens' band, a CTE activity at a secondary school or an instrumental lesson at a music school.
Through these field visits, students come into contact with multiple ways of making music and various audiences in different places, while discovering new musical possibilities.
In the final part of Educational Skills, students do an internship in which they spend a semester teaching their own instrument to a pedagogical student. Lessons are free of charge for the pedagogical students and, by doing so, the conservatoire contributes to making music lessons accessible to all.
In the Music in Education programme, we contribute to social connection in The Hague through internships. These internships offer valuable experience and bring music to various target groups. For example:
- An internship placement for one student with pre-school music and language lessons for toddlers at the Oranje Nassauschool in The Hague.
- Two internships at the educational project 'Ontdek het Orkest' or the Residentie Orkest/The Residents, where children in disadvantaged neighbourhoods are given the opportunity to learn to play an instrument
In the master curriculum, students are given the opportunity to develop a Master Project focused on the student's future. The Master Project covers three areas: artistic development, research and professional integration. Besides lessons in the main subject (instrument/vocal/composition/art of sound), students conduct research on a subject of their choice. Students also design and initiate their own professional activity outside the walls of the conservatoire. All these elements and activities come together in the Master Project.
Some of these current and completed Master Projects focus on social engagement with various themes, starting points and target groups, such as: music theatre for families; music in care homes; social interventions to reach children of all backgrounds with music; organising performances with and for people with mental, physical or other types of challenges ( for example, blind musicians); concert themes such as social injustice; organising new festivals in new places, such as in Spanish nature; using percussion as an instrument to promote environmental awareness.
The Royal Conservatoire has been offering the Masters programme New Audiences and Innovative Practice (NAIP) since 2008. This programme provides future professional musicians with the knowledge and skills to become artistically flexible practitioners who can adapt to a wide range of social contexts, through experimentation and research.
Entrepreneurial NAIP students fill a significant part of the curriculum themselves, depending on their ambitions and needs. All students learn to develop and lead creative projects in various artistic, social and cross-sectoral settings, through highly practice-oriented subjects such as Performance & Communication, Collaborative Practice and Socially Engaged Artistic Practice.
During the Master's in Sonology, students work on individual research projects. Current and recent projects include social topics such as:
- the abstract qualities and socio-cultural dimension of music.
- the exploration of commemorative practices through aural experience, to create a sound work that communicates with human perception and environment, to facilitate collective memory through listening and making sound.
- the development of a musical language and compositional approach intended as tools for critical reflection on current issues.
Royal Conservatoire Dance organises regular introductory days for children aged 7 to 12 such as the Pupil's Day and Boys' Day. These days are intended for both children who prefer to dance all day and children who know nothing about dance. This way, they can experience what it is like to be a dance pupil at the Royal Conservatoire. Dance experience is not required, everyone is welcome! What comes first is having fun moving and experiencing what it is like to be on stage.
Several subjects can be chosen within the curriculum that give students the opportunity to participate in various social projects. For more information, see to the right.
Service to society - in connection with The Hague
The Royal Conservatoire has a direct connection with The Hague, a city where art and culture flourish. As an international conservatoire, we welcome students from all over the world. Moreover, we are proud of the initiative IN.TUNE, the first European University Alliance for music and art. Together with other European conservatoires, we are committed to socially engaged practice and research. Our joint intensive training courses enable students to use their creative work as a tool to address societal challenges - a 'service to society'.
Collaboration with the Residentie Orkest
The Royal Conservatoire has a very valuable collaboration with the Residentie Orkest, one of our partners in Amare.
Our master's students can opt for the master's specialisation Orchestra Master in which they participate in rehearsals and concerts of the orchestra. The Residentie Orkest is known for being an orchestra of and for The Hague and organises many activities and events for the residents of The Hague and its surroundings. For instance, musical crossover projects and educational activities in schools and theatres.
In the One Minute Symphony project, composition students take to the streets to make contact with a resident of a neighbourhood in The Hague. This encounter is to inspire the student to compose a one-minute symphony, written for the line-up in which the orchestra is playing that week. Prior to the Symphonic Friday concerts, this One Minute Symphony will be performed. A fascinating project for composers, conductors, musicians and for visitors. For more information on this collaboration, see the RO-website.
To make music accessible to as many people as possible, our calendar is full of concerts and workshops, both inside and outside the walls of the conservatoire.
