I corsi universitari italiani in discipline musicali e il loro contributo alla formazione del pubblico

Abstract

This article discusses audience education as a ‘third mission’ commitment, a specific institutional task assigned to universities by recent government legislation, as well as a preferred subject of recent debate among Italian musicologists. Starting from a distinction between various types of audiences, from the general public to the diverse group of university audiences, the article proposes two action perspectives for universities in their task of educating the public, both in a curricular and extracurricular setting, focusing in particular on the former. The notion of ‘education’ as Bildung is recalled and applied to the field of music education within the broader context of democratic education. The notion of a ‘knowledge society’, which lies at the heart of the social, political and economic development of Western societies, is also reconsidered as part of a reflection on the complexity of today’s knowledge production, in particular expert knowledge, and on the ways in which knowledge itself is acquired by the general public. Within this perspective, the article finally proposes four directions for university teaching in musicological subjects aimed at audience education: a rigorous disciplinarity, as the foundation of true cross-disciplinarity; an enhancement of historical training; laboratory teaching; the mutual support that universities can provide in their own research efforts, teaching and third mission initiatives, also thanks to Rete Universitaria per l’Educazione musicale [University Network for Music Education].