How Educated Must an Artist Be? – ChronicleReview.com: “However, the first goal has yet to be achieved — can anyone name a great Ph.D. artist of our time? — and the second merely indicates what is wrong in academe, which is that it elevates credentials over everything else.”
This article is about art, but could be applied equally to music. I think part of the issue is that the university has replaced the aristocracy as the sponsor of the arts and artists. We can’t be on the court of the Arch-Duke any longer, so we are on the faculty at the local college.
I say all of this as I plan to start work on a DMA next fall…
(Via ArtsJournal.)
Yusef Lateef and Vijay Iyer both have PhDs. George Lewis doesn’t but he might as well with his tenured faculty position at Columbia and his incredible academic prowess.