What is music education for? Understanding and fostering routes into lifelong musical engagement

Music education has a long history of defending its place in the school curriculum, with practitioners and researchers alike arguing for the creative, social and cognitive benefits of music in young people's lives. Meanwhile, those who doubt the benefits of musical learning – or more likely give them very little thought – are themselves the product of their own music education, just as much as the many amateur musicians and music listeners, a smaller number of professional musicians, and indeed the music education workforce in schools, universities and beyond. There are challenging questions to be asked, therefore, about what lasting values and attitudes the majority of the population acquire during their formative musical years – and what responsibilities school music education holds for shaping those values across the population. This keynote paper from RIME 2015 draws on diverse empirical studies with infant schools, chamber music audiences and lapsed amateur musicians, using this evidence to reflect on how music educators could be more aware – and make others more aware – of their contribution to lifelong musical engagement, and of the risks, challenges and opportunities inherent in the shaping of musical lives.