This collaborative autoethnography was developed by recent doctoral students in music from Southern Europe, Eurasia, East Asia, and North America, along with a professor based in Northern Europe. Our primary research question is “What can disruptive autobiographical experiences teach us about the implications of the decolonization movement for redefining “musical excellence” in higher music education?” The co-authors interviewed each other for their respective personal narratives on this theme, then collaboratively coded, analyzed and developed their results and interpretations. Four sub-questions served as prompts: (1) What was your gateway into music and how did the music learning-tradition that you were exposed to affect your development as a musician? (2) In what ways was the concept of “musical excellence” a part of your (early) development as a musician? (3) How does the concept of “musical excellence” impact how being an “artist” is defined by you and people around you? (4) How did this perception of “what is an artist” affect your musical path (and even how others perceive your career)? We share our findings and discuss implications in terms of possible innovations to higher music education, definitions of “musical excellence,” approaches to evaluation, and the role of competition in education.

中文翻译：

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从非殖民主义角度重新思考“音乐卓越”：博士学者的颠覆性自传经历


这种合作性的民族志是由来自南欧、欧亚大陆、东亚和北美的音乐博士生与北欧的一位教授共同开发的。我们的主要研究问题是“颠覆性的自传体经历可以告诉我们什么关于非殖民化运动对重新定义高等教育中的“音乐卓越”的影响？”合著者互相采访了彼此关于这个主题的个人叙述，然后合作编码、分析和发展了他们的结果和解释。四个子问题作为提示：（1）您进入音乐的途径是什么？您所接触的音乐学习传统如何影响您作为音乐家的发展？ (2) “音乐卓越”的概念在哪些方面成为您作为音乐家（早期）发展的一部分？ (3) “音乐卓越”的概念如何影响你和你周围的人对“艺术家”的定义？ (4) 这种对“什么是艺术家”的看法如何影响你的音乐道路（甚至其他人如何看待你的职业生涯）？我们分享我们的发现，并讨论对高等音乐教育的可能创新、“音乐卓越”的定义、评估方法以及竞争在教育中的作用等方面的影响。