It is recommended to study acting major, as the employment opportunities in musicals seem to be narrower. Personal opinion, for reference only.

Performance Major

Cultivation goals: Music performance professionals with systematic professional knowledge and skills. After graduation, they can be competent in singing, performance and related theoretical research and teaching.

Main courses: professional courses, sight-singing and ear training, basic music theory, harmony, musical form, introduction to art, music appreciation, national folk music, Chinese music history, foreign music history, and piano basics.

Employment directions: literary and artistic groups, universities and secondary schools, news media, various training courses, and self-employment.

Musical Theater Major

Musical theater is an emerging comprehensive stage art that emerged in the 20th century. It integrates song, dance, and drama, and extensively uses high-tech stage art technology. , constantly pursuing the perfect combination of visual effects and auditory effects. At the same time, Western musicals have summed up a set of successful market operation methods through more than a century of commercial performance experience, and created a series of excellent plays suitable for all ages, making this art form break through objective factors such as age and class. Limited, widely loved by the audience.

With the healthy and rapid development of our country's economy, the people's demand for cultural entertainment has also undergone diversified changes. Musicals, a new art form, have quickly become popular with their audio-visual, elegant and popular appeal. Characteristics attract a fixed and growing audience. But at the same time, market demand has also brought to the surface the problem of talent shortage. Especially in Shanghai, an international metropolis with booming economic and cultural development, professional talents in musical theater are in hot demand and in short supply. It was under the urging of this market that the Musical Theater Department of Shanghai Conservatory of Music came into being.

Since its establishment, the Shangyin Musical Theater Department has invited outstanding domestic and foreign musical actors and senior music teaching experts to give lectures in the department, and has implemented teacher-student exchanges with foreign musical theater teaching institutions , cooperative projects for student training. In 2003, the Musical Theater Department of Shanghai Conservatory of Music became an overseas member of the National Musical Theater Alliance headquartered in New York, allowing the department to cooperate more closely with international musical theater industry insiders and professional theater groups.

In the teaching process, the Shangyin Musical Theater Department gives full play to the teaching advantages of the music major of the old conservatory of music, and consolidates the foundation of music majors and basic performance skills; it carefully absorbs the school-running experience of other professional colleges and learns from traditional opera teaching Based on the successful experience, we have changed the traditional music teaching model, streamlined the curriculum, and focused on the cultivation of stage singing and performance abilities.

The department focuses on stage practice as its teaching feature. It organizes students to rehearse excellent plays and participate in social performances all year round, and actively cooperates with professional art troupes, allowing students to learn from each other's strengths in the process of cooperating with outstanding actors at home and abroad. , learn from each other's strengths, practice in learning, and learn again in practice.

Since the establishment of the department, the department has continuously organized backbone teachers and students to conduct multi-level attempts at musical creation and market operation. With the concept of mutual teaching and learning, it has promoted the continuous optimization of musical teaching and cultivated talents with talents in our country. Internationally advanced all-round musical theater professionals.

The undergraduate degree in the Department of Musical Theater lasts 4 years and recruits students nationwide.

Musical Theater Department Curriculum:

Professional courses: Vocal music, dance, performance, play rehearsal

Professional basic courses: Musical theater history, Chinese music history, foreign music History, piano, music theory, sight-singing and ear training, duet, chorus, line recitation

Professional elective courses: stage lighting, image design, makeup skills, costume art

Musical Theater Department There are 4 teaching and research groups:

Vocal music teaching and research group, dance teaching and research group, piano art tutoring teaching and research group, performance teaching and research group, and repertoire teaching and research group.

Where do musical theater graduates find their way out?

As the musical "Cats" is being performed in Shanghai, embarrassing news comes from the Central Academy of Drama, which was the first in China to set up an undergraduate class in musical theater. The first batch of undergraduates graduating this year are still No one found a job.

Dilemma: The first batch of graduates are worried about their future

Chinese opera graduates have always been a hot commodity that major troupes across the country compete for.

But this year, as the time for handing over the archives of Chinese Opera graduates is getting closer, there is a situation where many people are happy and one family is sad: 24 graduates of the school's first performance department musical theater class have no place to stay. Students in musical theater classes have to juggle various employment exams outside their majors. Previously, a professional musical troupe in Japan, the Four Seasons Troupe, had invited three students in the class, but no one was willing to go. In the end, everyone was willing to stay in China for development.

Dialysis: Made in China is not yet large-scale

It is said that musicals are a rising industry, but no one is interested in musical theater graduates. What's the reason? Professionals believe that there is a market for domestic musicals, but there is no industrial scale for Chinese-made products, which is the most important reason why talents are blocked.

Liu Jian, a professor at the Department of Musical Theater at Shangyin Music, believes that musicals have been introduced into the domestic performance market and have formed a large consumer group. However, the ultimate development of musicals in the country is still indispensable for the lasting development of Chinese original works. Massive success. In recent years, although there have been no fewer than 200 exploratory productions of so-called musicals across the country, there have been few successful examples of multiple performances and long-term profitability. They were all put away after a few performances. Without a fixed theater and successful productions to maintain a minimum number of performances, it is not difficult to understand why domestic musical performance education, which is relatively forward-thinking, has no outlet for talents.

Controversy: Support people or find projects

Where is the way out for musical talents? People in Beijing and Shanghai have different views. In an interview with the Beijing media, the head teacher of the Chinese Opera Musical Theater Class believed that there is currently no dedicated musical theater troupe in China, and the musical theater major has no place to use when facing major theater troupes. If I had the conditions to start my own musical troupe, I wouldn't be as embarrassed as I am now. Relevant people in Shanghai believe that using the traditional concept of a group to support a group of people to solve the problem of musical talent's future will only cause bigger problems in the future.

Because musicals are, after all, an industry born in response to the needs of the market. Whether it is on Broadway in New York or in the West End of London, only when the project is recognized and the play is successful can there be a continuous cycle of performances. In this case, actors will be recruited from the whole society and even the world. Being a musical actor is not a tenure-track concept. It depends on which theater group you are admitted to, and you will have a few years of professional life. For example, the "Cats" crew that came to China this time, although it is called a performance troupe, is also a recruitment troupe derived from the successful version in the UK and Broadway. When the reporter interviewed Nunn, the director of "Cats", he learned that even for a crew like "Cats", the main actors usually change every two years. Therefore, musical theater performance should be a freelance career, and deciding to join it means that you also have to withstand market risks.

Try: Find a spot in the Chinese version

The setback in the allocation of the first batch of graduates means that opening a musical theater performance major is a premature move? Where do the crab eaters of Chinese musicals find their seats? Qian Shijin, general manager of the Shanghai Grand Theater Art Center, revealed that after "Phantom of the Opera" comes to Shanghai next year, Shanghai will start trying to test the Chinese version of "Phantom of the Opera" first in Shanghai the year after that. Relevant people from the Really Good Group in the UK have visited Shangyin Musical Performance Major a few days ago. They expressed their approval for the talent training mechanism and the level of students there, and expressed that they will make every effort to promote the premiere of the Chinese version of "Phantom of the Opera" in 2005. Among them, Chinese training Actors will become the performance team; the idea of ??building the first musical theater in Shanghai has also surfaced

Bill Taylor, CEO of the British Really Good Group, told reporters that in Japan and South Korea, local actors are I first began to perform in the Japanese and Korean versions of classic British and American musicals, and then I grew up. The Chinese need to Chineseize musicals first, so that Chinese musical actors can have a long-term foothold.