Music Crossroads Academy Zimbabwe has a visitor from Berlin this month, and he's not here to sightsee. William Ramsay, the academy's International Curriculum Developer, arrived in the country this week for a 10-day training programme with its teaching and administrative staff, the academy announced on its Facebook page.
What the 10 days cover
According to the academy, Ramsay will run practical sessions on four fronts:
- Moodle management, the open-source learning platform the academy uses to run courses and coursework online
- Music notation software, the tools musicians use to write, arrange and share scores
- Ensemble development, building bands and groups that play tightly together
- Effective teaching methodologies, how lessons are planned and delivered
The academy says the goal is to strengthen both its academic and administrative capacity, with staff picking up new skills, sharpening existing practice and trying fresh approaches to music education and administration.
Who William Ramsay is
Ramsay is a saxophonist and composer based in Berlin, trained at the California Institute of the Arts. Since 2008 he has been artistic director of the Global Music Academy in Berlin, and he is pedagogical director of the Global Music Campus, a consortium of music academies in Burundi, Ethiopia, Germany, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, according to The Africa Institute. The same profile names him as pedagogical advisor to the Music Crossroads Academies in southern Africa.
The Moodle sessions are not a random pick. The Africa Institute reports that Ramsay is developing a Moodle-based online learning platform for African music, holding roughly ten years of curriculum material, with support from Germany's culture ministry and the Goethe-Institut. Teaching Harare's staff to run that system well is part of getting it into everyday use.
Why the curriculum matters
Music Crossroads began in 1995 as a Jeunesses Musicales International programme for young musicians in southern Africa, and has since involved more than 150,000 young musicians across Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, JM International says. In April 2013 it opened three academies, in Harare, Lilongwe and Maputo.
Writing for Music Diplomacy, Melody Zambuko, country director of Music Crossroads Zimbabwe, explained that the academies' three-year programme uses a curriculum developed by Berlin's Global Music Academy. Instead of leaning on 19th-century European conservatoire methods, it draws its material from African and African diaspora music, so students learn core skills inside their own musical culture. She also wrote that 89 teachers had received international training by then, and that scholarship funding remained a pressing need, a reminder that good curriculum only goes as far as the money to keep students in class.
That approach has a track record. Mokoomba, the Victoria Falls band now touring the world, started out as an amateur group at Music Crossroads Zimbabwe.
What it means
For students, the benefit is indirect but real. Teachers who are confident with notation software and a learning platform can share scores, set work and track progress outside the rehearsal room, which matters in a city where getting to class every day isn't a given. Stronger ensemble coaching feeds straight into the bands the academy puts on stage, and better administration helps keep a non-profit running between funding rounds.
There's also a chance to hear the man himself. Ramsay is billed to play An Evening of Afro Jazz with William Ramsay at Gava's Restaurant, Belgravia Sports Club, on Thursday 8 October from 6 to 8PM, backed by the Music Crossroads Academy Band and Prudence Katomeni. If you want to see what the training sounds like in practice, that's the place to start.
