CHENNAI: A R Rahman on Thursday unveiled plans for a first-ever collaboration in music instruction between his K M Music Conservatory and London's Middlesex University.
Plans for the partnership, Rahman said, were made when he was conferred with an honorary doctorate by the university recently. "We started the conservatory out of nothing. Now, this collaboration is the next step for us. This is a really big thing for us and we believe it is the right way forward to provide quality education," he said at a felicitation function here. Pointing out that the country had a rich reserve of talent, he said, "All we need to do is train students." "The thing about music is that it is universal. But this partnership can serve as a great bridge between Indian and Western music. It is a new area which can bring both cultures together," Rahman added. K M Music Conservatory CEO T Selvakumar said the collaboration would provide an opportunity for students to become proficient in Western classical music. "We want to tie up with a university that can give us a lot of credibility. Initially, we were looking at working with Indian universities. However, none of them has a department exclusively for Western classical music. In fact, we [K M Music Conservatory] are the only centre that offers a degree programme for it. So, we thought it makes sense to seek affiliation with a university in London since it is the authority on the subject." Both institutions were looking to offer a three-year programme where students could complete two years at the conservatory and their last year at the university and vice-versa. "We are looking to offer a programme which will purely follow the syllabus designed by Middlesex University. Another option we are considering is to introduce an Indian component in this module that we will design ourselves. Optimistically speaking, we hope to begin these programmes within a record period of six months. It is the same time that we took to start the conservatory," he added. Professor Edward J Esche, dean of arts and education, Middlesex University, said they were excited about the project. The university currently offers BA programmes in Jazz, Music Composition, Music Performance, a B.Mus in Popular Music and M.Mus in Popular Music. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/chennai/Rahmans-school-announces-tie-up-with-UK-varsity/articleshow/4865140.cms Rahman fever His Music ~ My Mother Tongue Looking for local information? Find it on Yahoo! Local http://in.local.yahoo.com/
