Analysis June 2021: Limited access

The student bodies of conservatoires are some of the most international of all specialist higher education institutions. The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) in Glasgow, for example, has students from more than 60 countries. New York’s Juilliard School currently has 31 per cent international students with 44 nationalities represented. And at the Hochschule für Musik (HfM) Hanns Eisler in Berlin no less than 75 per cent of students are from countries other than Germany. While the pandemic has made recorded and online auditions the only option for the majority of prospective students, both international and domestic, among the current student body it is international students who have often missed out the longest on in-person teaching…