Peer assessment of tertiary music performance: opportunities for understanding performance assessment and performing through experience and self-reflection

This paper discusses a project in which third-year undergraduate Performance majors were asked to assess their second-year peers. The impetus for launching the project came from some stirrings of discontent amongst a few students. Instead of finding the assessment of their peers a manageable task, most students found the breadth of musical focus, across a diverse range of musical styles on a wide range of instruments, daunting and difficult. Despite this, students and staff believed the task had proved valuable for learning about the assessment process itself and for understanding the performance process.