The La Paz Conservatory: An Ivory Tower or a Town Square?

Author: John Connolly (UK), Caio Machado (Brazil), Julia Monaco (Canada), Bradley Powell (Jamaica/Canada), Ian Taylor (USA)

In late 2017, Rector Beatriz Méndez and Academic Director Sachiko Sakuma, the new leadership team at Bolivia’s Conservatorio Plurinacional de Música (CPM), confronted a stark reality. While the century-old institution was on a path toward official university accreditation, it was fundamentally disconnected from the city it was meant to serve. Its concert halls were often sparsely attended, even by its own students, while the streets of La Paz outside teemed with vibrant, popular brass band performances. Worse, this thriving local music scene was not a feeder for their program but a direct competitor, actively poaching their most talented students with the lure of paid work. Méndez and Sakuma realized that to secure the conservatory’s future, they had to fundamentally redefine its relationship with its community—a choice that would challenge the very identity of the institution.

BACKGROUND

Founded in 1907, the Conservatorio Plurinacional de Música has long been Bolivia’s premier institution for formal training in the Western classical tradition. Now, in a pivotal moment of transition, it is working with the Ministry of Education to become the country’s first accredited, degree-granting music conservatory. This institutional evolution is taking place within the unique cultural landscape of La Paz, which boasts a highly visible and popular public music culture dominated by traditional and popular forms, particularly brass bands. This vernacular music ecosystem exists in parallel to, but almost entirely separate from, the formal “art music” world of the CPM.

THE ORGANISATIONAL MODEL AND THE RELEVANCE GAP

The CPM operates a traditional conservatory model, offering rigorous, government-subsidised training in classical performance to a student body from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Its downtown La Paz location and long history give it a respected, institutional brand. However, this brand suffers from a critical “relevance gap.”

The artistic “product” the conservatory offers—classical music—has low demand from the local audience, resulting in poor attendance at its own concerts. Simultaneously, the CPM faces direct competition for its most valuable asset—its students—from the more lucrative and popular local music industry. Talented brass students, after a few semesters of training, can easily find paid work in parade bands, leading to high attrition rates before they complete their advanced studies. The conservatory is historically important but is not an integral part of the city’s living, breathing cultural life.

THE STRATEGIC CHALLENGE

The central challenge for Méndez and Sakuma is to bridge this relevance gap and transform the conservatory from an isolated “ivory tower” into an indispensable “town square” for the musical life of La Paz. This requires confronting a fundamental tension between the institution’s traditional, Eurocentric model and the vibrant vernacular culture of its environment. The current paradigm implicitly views the popular music scene as a threat—a lower-art form that distracts students and corrupts their training.

To ensure the conservatory’s long-term sustainability and impact, the leadership must decide whether to fortify the walls by doubling down on the classical tradition and trying to “educate” the public on its value, or to build bridges by actively engaging with and incorporating Bolivian popular and traditional music into the conservatory’s core identity.

A FRAMEWORK FOR A NEW MODEL: THE CIVIC INTEGRATION STRATEGY

A potential path forward is a multi-pronged “Civic Integration” strategy designed to systematically embed the conservatory into the city’s educational, cultural, and professional ecosystems. This strategy would be built on four pillars:

1. Curricular Integration: Rather than forbidding interaction with popular music, formally incorporate the study and performance of Bolivian popular and traditional music into the curriculum. Use this repertoire as a powerful pedagogical tool to teach musical concepts, honour local culture, and strategically retain students, especially in the high-attrition brass department.
2. Educational Integration: As part of the new pedagogy degree accreditation, launch a formal teaching internship program. Place advanced CPM students in La Paz’s public schools, creating a virtuous cycle that improves the quality of music education city-wide, establishes a robust feeder system for the conservatory, and provides students with practical career training.
3. Community Integration: Radically shift the locus of performance from the conservatory’s under-attended hall to the community itself. Develop a “Conservatory in the Community” concert series in schools, churches, and public squares to build new audiences and demonstrate the institution’s civic value directly.
4. Alumni Integration: Establish a formal alumni network to track career paths, provide structured mentorship and networking opportunities for current students, and cultivate a new generation of local donors and advocates for the institution.

IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATIONS

Executing this strategy would require navigating significant challenges. The most substantial hurdle could be internal cultural resistance from faculty deeply committed to a purely classical mission, who might view the inclusion of popular music as a dilution of artistic standards. The strategy is also heavily dependent on building formal partnerships with external, often bureaucratic, entities like the Ministry of Education and the public school system, which demands significant diplomatic and administrative effort. While some pillars, like the alumni network, are relatively low-cost, others, like the community concert series, would require dedicated administrative oversight and resources.

DECISION POINT

As they chart the course for the conservatory’s next century, Rector Méndez and Academic Director Sakuma must make a foundational choice about the identity of the institution they are building.

Option A: The Traditionalist Path. This strategy would focus exclusively on achieving accreditation for the existing classical curriculum. It would involve strengthening the traditional model, improving facilities, and working to elevate the status of classical music in the community, maintaining a clear distinction from the popular music scene. The goal is to make the “ivory tower” stronger and more attractive on its own terms.

Option B: The Integrationist Path. This strategy involves committing to the comprehensive Civic Integration framework. It would fundamentally redefine the conservatory’s mission to include the study, performance, and teaching of Bolivian popular and traditional music alongside the classical canon. The goal is to tear down the walls of the ivory tower and reposition the CPM as the dynamic, indispensable heart of all of La Paz’s musical life.

The decision rests on a crucial question: What is the most viable path to relevance for a national conservatory in a 21st-century, post-colonial context? Should it be a bastion of a global artistic tradition, or a dynamic leader and reflection of its unique local culture?