ABSTRACT
This chapter chronicles how teaching in the particular environment of New England Conservatory (NEC) came to shape the author's thinking about music, music education, and the model of the professional musician. The conservatory model of professionalism is generally a twentieth-century model: a musician is someone whose primary income is derived from rehearsing, performing, and occasionally teaching music. The chapter evaluates the Contemporary Improvisation program as it enters its fifth decade: How does the department realize a utopian premise of a world without musical boundaries. He was newly hired by the Contemporary Improvisation department at NEC, one of the world's great music schools and, for several decades now, one of the world's most progressive. Finally, It discusses how the author's own approach to a pedagogy of improvisation evolved in relationship with discussions in his entrepreneurship classes, and assess how the NEC's model can fit an ever-changing context for professional employment.
