Liceo Musical Bonporti

Didactic Organisation

The Trento Liceo Musicale, established by ministerial decree on 28 April 1987 at the State Conservatoire of Trento, is named after Francesco Antonio Bonporti, an 18th-century musician from Trento.

The students of the Liceo Musicale are in their own right students of the Conservatoire – they must simultaneously be enrolled in the Liceo and the Conservatoire, in the pre-academic courses – and participate in all the prestigious musical and cultural initiatives, locally or abroad, in which the Conservatoire itself is involved.

A large proportion of the students who attended the Liceo Musicale include many of the young musicians currently active in our region in the fields of classical music, jazz and pop music, as well as numerous professionals who have chosen other paths and completed them without difficulty.

At the Liceo Musicale it is possible to carry out specialised musical studies and at the same time acquire a broad humanistic and scientific education: the curriculum simultaneously promotes specialised musical training, given the wide range of available instrument courses guaranteed by the ‘F.A. Bonporti’ Conservatoire (with attention to both traditional and more innovative musical professions), and an adequate upper secondary school education.

Lessons at the Liceo Musicale are held at Via S.M. Maddalena no. 16.

The Liceo musicale ‘Bonporti’ was established within the Conservatoire as an experiment of an integrated curriculum. Since 2001 it has been included in the “Vittoria” Institute of Arts Education in Trento, and its relationship with the Conservatory has been specified in an agreement. Therefore, the role of the ‘Bonporti’ Conservatoire of Music of Trento relates today to studies with a professional vocation, insisting on the propaedeutic preparation through the system of pre-academic courses, within which, in addition to the ‘Bonporti’ High School of Music, the project of the musically characterised middle schools is also included, with sites currently in Trento and Riva del Garda.

The ensemble of these experiences constitutes the structure of a project for the pre-professional level, articulated in propaedeutic segments, corresponding to the two areas of activity. The project establishes a perspective of organic action on the pre-professional level of academic studies in higher music education, capable of summarising and translating in the most up-to-date terms the long tradition, inherent to Italian culture, according to which musical training with a professional vocation must begin at a young age.

It is no coincidence that the law reforming the Conservatoires provides precisely for the continued action of the Conservatoires and the National Dance Academy on the propaedeutic segments through conventions, in this way finding a profitable link with a tradition of great value, which is not by chance observed all over the world for its quality level, concerning both music and dance studies.

The enrolment trend has been fairly constant in recent years; the natural pool of pupils are the middle schools already attached to the Conservatoire, currently under an agreement (Scuole medie a caratterizzazione musicale “Bonporti” in Trento and Riva del Garda, respectively integrated into the Istituto comprensivo Trento 5 and Riva 1), which have ensured and can ensure the presence of a homogeneous group of students, complementary to those coming from other middle schools in the Province. Given the school’s uniqueness in the panorama of Trentino high schools and, more generally, with respect to the situation throughout Italy, pupils from all over Trentino and, in some cases, also from Veneto, come to the Liceo, resulting in the establishment of five classes.

Relationships with the world of employment have always been part of the specificity of artistic institutions, as the need for training that takes into account diversified professional outlets has always been felt: training understood as a crossroads of choice for further selective paths or for development in other fields where instrumental or vocal performance is the basic, but not the only, support for professional profiles (particularly numerous and diversified in today’s society).

Students wishing to follow post-secondary courses in the sector (with a high degree of specialisation) may also undertake university courses in the humanities, since the transversal nature of the aptitudes and knowledge developed during the course of study ensures a polyvalent education.

The Liceo musicale is open to students with a secondary school diploma who can demonstrate their motivation and aptitude for the professional study of music. In particular:

• Secondary school pupils already enrolled at the Conservatoire.
• Pupils from other middle schools and music-oriented middle schools who have passed an admission examination to the Conservatoire.

For all of them, certification of completion of studies in basic musical subjects (Theory and Solfeggio) must be obtained by the end of the two-year Liceo. Only candidates for the Composition School must already hold such certification.

Let us recall that the Liceo Musicale in Trento was founded in 1987 as an experiment, approved and regulated in detail by a specific Decree of the Ministry of Public Education. In this decree, it was established that the Liceo Musicale di Trento’s high school route and curriculum would meet two parallel criteria:

• A normal high school course that would provide the student with an artistic maturity at the end of the five-year study period that would allow access to any university faculty.
• A musical curriculum that would lead students to a functional preparation for access to higher level studies, i.e. the academic cycle.

These two teaching areas (that of the common subject area and that of the musical subjects of the specialisation) found a high degree of balance, a fruitful comparison and a well-tested interdisciplinary interpenetration in the Liceo Musicale experience. The encounter between the tradition of classical and humanistic studies and the musical specialisation has given a new and profound meaning to the musical experience, giving a strong cultural and didactic depth to the students’ experience, which, among other things, fills in some shortcomings detectable in the studies of the old Italian Conservatoire system. In fact, we recall that the study of subjects such as History of Music (five years), Harmony and Counterpoint (three years), Choral Singing and Second Instrument (extended to all students) is deepened.

There is also a fruitful in-depth study and comparison with other fields of knowledge, which are fundamental to the understanding and meaning of the more strictly musical subjects: History, History of Art, Latin (remember that Western music from early Christian chant to the late 16th century is all written on Latin texts), the Sciences and Philosophy.

In this sense, the Liceo Musicale stands as the pedagogical avant-garde of the new Italian musician, not understood as a mere niche professional, but as a bearer of culture inserted in the more general Italian artistic-cultural tradition.

Musical Studies

The music studies curriculum is organised in the organic correlation between a number of basic fields of education:

• Performance and Interpretation
• Theory and analysis
• Ensemble music
• History of music
• Music technology

The musical part of the curriculum correlates perfectly with the similarly structured pre-academic system of Conservatoire studies.

On the system of pre-academic studies at the Conservatoire, please refer to the page devoted to it, where you will also find documents relating to:

• specific learning objectives;
• regulation of pre-academic studies;
• curricula for pre-academic courses;
• examination programmes levels of competence pre-academic studies

The Latin Language is taught as an optional subject for two hours per week.

Facultative area

Dance section

Since the 2005-06 school year, a dance section has been added to the Liceo Musicale, in which specific subjects such as Dance Techniques, Dance Theory and History and Choreographic Workshop have been added to the common subjects of the music section in collaboration with the best dance schools in Trentino.
Students at the Liceo musicale-coreutico are called upon to:

• know significant repertoires of national and international musical and dance heritage, analysing them by listening to, viewing and decoding the texts
• identify the historical reasons for the most important works, movements, musical currents and dance productions of the past and present, connecting them to the coeval development of religions, letters, arts, sciences, techniques and society;
• know and analyse the structural elements of musical and coreutic language under the aspects of composition, interpretation, performance, and improvisation;
• know the relationships between music, motor skills, emotionality and cognitive sciences.