Music studies

I refer to the letter entitled LRSM Diploma by Hugo Agius Muscat (December 28). I would like to inform the Maltese public that we have a University of Malta whose Mediterranean Institute offers a complete Music Studies Programme in which our young Maltese talent can specialise in musicology, performance and composition.

The Music Programme of our university has been considered as having very high standards by all the visiting external examiners with whom I have had personal contact as the Head of the Programme over these last 13 years.

It would be absolutely foolish if one were to equate all those courses taken over three years full-time at the University of Malta to just the one examination (I have done this in 1969) for the diploma. It must be made clear that the Music Studies Programme of the University of Malta has a different set of parameters in assessing musical qualifications not earned from a resident course in an officially approved musical institution - what the QAC does in UK is no concern to us. All we know is that students with grades and/or diplomas come for auditioning to join our Music Studies Programme, most of the time in a technically deplorable state.

I must add that last October, I had the pleasure to host here in Malta the Polifonia group of the Association of European Conservatories in which 11 music directors from 11 music academies read papers on the achievements of their national music schools/academies. They were all greatly surprised that in Malta, in 2007 (after over 40 years of independence), so many students still believe that they can become professional musicians by sitting for what I was referring to as "colonial diplomas".

One of the problems inherent in these exams and which shows the futility of it all is the fact that the examiner/s find themselves judging areas which are outside their specialisation (for example a conductor examining an organist, a singer, a violinist etc.). By analogy this would be similar to a dentist examining a surgeon.

I beg all serious music students who want to become professional musicians to use their intelligence and distinguish between what is real and phoney. Would someone go to a medical doctor who has earned his qualification without having attended a regular university course and, thus, not having attended the stipulated courses by his nation's university? This is a very serious concern which begs our nation's attention, especially when we consider that now we have to compete with other EU nations who have a long conservatory tradition.