The desire for self-improvement and the support for collaborative projects are two of the identity signs of our institution. This is reflected in, on the one hand, the name of Victoria de los Ángeles and the inspiration of her successful international career despite her humble origins, and, on the one hand, in the Music and Dance interdisciplinar Project called “Amalgama” working since over twelve years in collaboration with the Carmen Amaya Conservatory, which involves more than three hundred people from both institutions on the stage creating a unique project. The principal aim of our Erasmus + project is the improvement of the educational  success  based on a couple of capital concepts. On one hand, we have a special  interest in getting a more newfangled  methodology, implementing the skills  based on  improvisation and to carry out acknowledgement through multidisciplinary projects, observing as well the different itineraries offered in music. On the other hand we want to research  how the selection process of the students and the requirements to be accepted at the different Music Universities in Europe works.

We gave our first steps as a teachers seminar in the faculty, who prepared the project inside the CRIF framework (Innovation and Formation Regional Center), in order to analyze the needs and objectives, write the application form and study the dissemination of the project and, especially, guarantee long-term sustainability. Its members have international experiences, which has allowed direct contact with the future host partners. The seminar has also established the participants selection protocol attending to foreign language level, specialities, skills, seniority in the centre and motivation. 

The initial activities planned for the near future include the observation of the teaching (Job shadowing) in four european music and arts teaching institutions in four different countries in the present and the coming school year. Each center has been selected for having a specific profile, which corresponds with the detected areas of improvement.The impact of the project is already active between the teachers involved, allowing us to establish new ways of co-working, which will definitely influence the way of managing upcoming projects. From here on we expect that the job-shadowing in other countries would contribute to motivate the whole educative community  in the acquisition of new skills and methodological tools and in the establishment  of new links, which enable us to improve the musical training of our students.  

We pursue to build up long term connections, in order to promote strategic associations and student mobility projects in the upcoming future. The innovative spirit of our faculty, leads us to enlarge a new horizon through the Erasmus + program, opening this educational projection to the rest of European institutions involved. “Legatissimo, Connecting Through Music” means a great and unique opportunity for every member in our educational community at the Conservatory of Music "Victoria de los Ángeles".

"Legatissimo Connecting Through Music" is the name of the project presented by the Conservatory of Music “Victoria de los Ángeles” that has been selected at the call for proposals for the Erasmus + program, 2020 Edition. 

The faculty team who has been preparing the project has Gema Rodríguez as the seminar organizer, Cristina Manzanares, Carlos Javier Fernández, Iván Sánchez, Marta Leiva, Nuria Rosa, José Enrique Moreno and Cristina Ferriz as former members, José Luis Bueno, Iván Martí and Javier Puentes who have joined this 2020/2021 edition and Manuel Cepero as a new external guest.

Erasmus + program will support and finance three of our teacher mobilities proposals, to be done during the coming two school years to the following European Schools that have been selected after having researched, analyzed and contacted with, at least, 15 educational Institutions from different european countries.

Musikschule Fanny Hensel (ALEMANIA) is a music school with the same educational level as ours, where it is also taught professional dance lessons, being the only ones in their district. 

They carry out an annual project, called “Da capo”, similar to our “Amalgama” (interdisciplinary project with live music and dance, performed by more than 400 students from the two conservatories –CPM Victoria de los Ángeles and CPD Carmen Amaya- in which is involved almost all the faculty of both institutions, being one of the few centers of Special Regime Teaching of the Region of Madrid with such a project with international projection).The composition of the several departments apart from classical music (jazz and pop) and their different itineraries, quite different from ours, will allow us to observe their study plans and how they carry out with the organization (personnel management, teams distribution and so on).

The great relevance of their ensembles is especially interesting looking at the  possibility of a collaboration involving students and their integration into a training period, which would be very enriching, implying a real integration and giving a lot of visibility to the project.

From Ylä-Savon Mjusiikkiopisto (FINLANDIA) we are interested in getting to know their whole system and curricula, specially two of their programs: One of them is “the music education through improvisation”, that we consider to be of fundamental importance and a subject increasingly encouraged in Spain and the other program would be the integration into its orchestra of both, professional and pre-professional itineraries that got , so far, very good results.

 Art J-Escola profissional de artes performativas de Jobra (PORTUGAL) is the only Technical College in Portugal that brings several Conservatories (secondary and university level) together, teaching music, dance, theatre and sports (athletics). 

They offer several itineraries that allow access to higher education, and “adapted to market demand” possibilities such as musical production and management, improvisation and jazz, etc ... This School intended “both ways” exchange with us, so that both centers will receive each other’s visit in the near future, which will definitely be interesting for all of us. 

At the last Erasmus+2020 proposals call, we included in our project 8 European centers, each with its singularities, in order to cover a bunch of needs that will help to increase the quality of the teaching in our School. 

Appart from new fresh ideas of mobility proposals for the coming 2021 proposals call, we consider to include a couple of institutions of our interest that were already included in the past one:

• El Conservatoire Darius Milhaud de Aix en Provence (FRANCIA), has over 1500 students and teaches Music, Dance and Theater. Its events schedule, mostly multidisciplinary, it is on the city's theaters network and the amount of artistic activity it offers is just spectacular. It has agreements with high schools in their area that allow them to perform multidisciplinary pedagogical concerts. 

  Their ensembles participate in the great exposure as the  “International Opera Festival of Aix en Provence” is. It has, as well, an open itinerary system (professional / amateur) with varied student profiles and flexibility to combine them, including ancient music, world music, jazz and improvisation, and offers a preparatory course before accessing the basic music education.

• Clara Schumann Musikschule de Düsseldorf (ALEMANIA),with 7,500 students, is one of the largest and most relevant music schools in Germany at their educational level. 

  They offer a specific program for students with special educational needs, taught by specifically qualified teachers. This possibility does not yet exist in any government public music school in Madrid, and the visit would allow us to know its protocols, curricular adaptations and the support they received from qualified experts. This will bring us useful information and training for the several cases that we might find in our school currently and in the future and will help to create a more inclusive society .

At this moment, the seminar team is considering to present a new proposal for the coming Erasmus call 2021 that includes students mobility as an extension of our already selected project, "Legatissimo Connecting Through Music" with the goal of promoting and consolidating the internationalization of our school and of the music studies in an stable and permanent way for the future.