The Commission for the Education of the Professional Musician brings together music educators from different parts of the world devoted to the comprehensive training of future musical art professionals in their various fields of action, in the context of higher education institutions. Heading towards its 25th Seminar in 2024, CEPROM’s core interest is the exploration, discussion and development of new approaches towards the formation of musicians who must be ready to face the challenges of a multi-faceted career: professional identity, expertise development, social responsibility, collaborative skills, leadership and ethics are some of the concerns that fuel our motivation for interchange and service.
The CEPROM Commission's vision is grounded in the belief that any discussion or action pertaining to the education and training of professional musicians must be sensitive to the roles and status that musicians have in various societies and cultures. Of equal importance is the attention to the value systems in those societies and cultures that drive the choices concerning music, education and the arts in a broader sense.
The mission of the CEPROM Commission is to engage in and promote a variety of activities in international and local settings that:
The CEPROM Commission accomplishes its mission by holding an International Seminar one week prior to each world conference to provide an opportunity for members and other professionals and students interested in the subject to share their ideas and work related to the mission.
The themes of recent seminars were “Leadership in the education of the professional musician” (2016), “The musician's career lifespan” (2018), “Ethics and inclusion in the education of professional musicians” (2020) and “The legacy and lessons of Professor “Dumbledean” – In memory of Professor Glen Carruthers”(2022). Each seminar is an opportunity to discuss and share experiences about specific topics related to the different aspects and problems of higher education in the wide field of music: transformative curriculum, technology potentialities, academy-community engagement, student agency and leadership, portfolio career options, transdisciplinary approaches, etc.
Next seminar, to be held in July 2024, will address topics related to advocacy and sustainability in higher music education. This will be expanded on soon, including theme and the seminar venue information.
In between seminars, CEPROM continues to interchange ideas, strategies and resources through social media channels and other special activities.
CEPROM Commissioners for the 2022-2024 biennium are:
The ISME CEPROM Co-Chairs are Jennifer Rowley and Nicole Canham.
Join the Facebook group or follow on Twitter and Instagram. You don't have to be an ISME member to participate.
Full papers and posters abstracts are edited into a CEPROM commission proceedings, shortly after each seminar. Past proceedings can be found below.
Additionally, projects resulting from collaboration and discussion amongst seminar participants have been published separately. Notable publications, with contributions from CEPROM seminar participants, are:
Life in the Real World: How to Make Music Graduates Employable, edited by Dawn Bennett and published in 2012 by Common Ground Publishing LLC.
Leadership and musician development in Higher Music Education and Leadership of Pedagogy and Curriculum in Higher Music Education, edited by Bennett, Rowley & Schmidt in 2019 and published by Routledge as part of the ISME Global Perspectives in Music Education Series.
