The 4th Pacific Alliance of Music Schools Summit was held at School of Music, the University of Auckland in New Zealand from April 5 to 9. Representatives of 11 conservatories from China, US, Canada, South Korea and Japan attended the summit.

At the meeting, the representatives discussed the transformation of traditional music education, the collision between music education, modern technology, and pop culture, reforms of the curriculums, career development of conservatory graduates, inter-disciplinary talents education, and traditional music performance and modern music performance.

The management of the 11 conservatories shared experience and cases of conservatories’ management and development, and how to prepare for the challenges brought about by transformations. They expressed their hope for establishing cooperation mechanism, deepening the regional partnership, and improving the quality of music education.

Wang Rui, vice-president of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, briefed the summit on SHCM’s development and reforms in recent years. He proposed to use different teaching methods for different individuals, elaborated on the importance of liberal studies for musicians, and suggested that conservatories should incorporate the graduates’ employment into the evaluation of the quality of the conservatory.

Wang also introduced contributions that SHCM had made to society such as holding public concerts to gain more support and recognition, and striving for better environment for conservatories in China.

At the summit, SHCM signed cooperation agreements with universities including Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and Tokyo University of Arts. SHCM also reached mutual cooperation intention with Thornton School of Music University of Southern California in music scoring, talents’ cultivating, and exchange mechanisms.