Talent og talentutvikling – et gammelt felt i nye klær?

Abstract

Historically, the music conservatoires provided education of musicians under the same roof as music tuition for children and amateurs. This was an organic way of organizing an education where an early start is beneficial and entrance to the profession requires years of lengthy practice. When the Norwegian Academy of Music was founded in 1973, pre-college music education was separated from higher education for many years, as was the case for most conservatoires. Finally, in 2004 the talent development programme Young Musicians started up, a programme that was run by institutions for higher music education. Since then, a talent development field has evolved in Norway. In this article, I do a discourse analysis (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001) of central reports and recommendations, the oldest from 1986 and the newest from 2020, where leaders and staff of higher music education institutions have been involved in improving the quantity and quality of talent development in Norway. The study identifies three discourses competing to articulate talent development, being a social democratic discourse of adapted education, access, and breadth, a professionalisation discourse defined by competitive ability, a prescription of development, and a set goal, and a Bildung discourse defined by holistic education, open goals, and focusing on the pupil’s needs. Talent is articulated by three discourses, namely an inborn discourse, an effort discourse, and a motivation discourse.