The Conservatoire offers Bachelors and Masters courses in baroque and classical oboe, within the department of Early Music. The Bachelors course consists of three years, while the Masters lasts two years.
The bachelors course focuses on playing baroque oboe and oboe d'amore. The students develop a fine understanding of the different baroque styles (French, Italian, German, galant, …) and learn how to approach these. This process happens in relation to the courses in applied theory taught within the Early Music department, helping students to gain a comprehensive training in artistic, practical and theoretical skills alongside general and cultural skills.
Alongside the weekly group and individual, instrumental and chamber music classes, each year students also participate in projects organised by the baroque oboe class (open class, wind instrument fair, master-classes) and by the department (colloquia, concerts, seminars, orchestra sessions, conferences organised by the department). The training also includes courses in reading and transposition, theory and writing. Students have access to historical instruments. Time is also spent teaching students how to make their own reeds. Different aspects of reed manufacture which are covered in class include learning to choose a good material, perfecting manufacture techniques, and developing a good appreciation of what makes a good reed in order to be able to reproduce this. Instruments and tools are also made available to students (classical oboes, oboes d'amore, gouging machines, …). By the end of this first cycle of studies, students should have gained a solid foundation for their instrumental technique, and have demonstrated the necessary basis to develop their own musical personality. They will have established a method of working on their instrument, alongside tools for intellectual work which allow them to approach different styles and develop an appropriate way to perform them.
Students can then build on this solid foundation during the Masters programme, allowing them to further develop their specific approach to their instrumental and artistic work, in particular work as a soloist. This culminates in the realisation of a personal artistic project at the end of their studies. During this second cycle, or masters programme, chamber music grows in importance, and leads students to develop links to the professional world (concerts, recordings...). Students regularly take part in ambitious projects, thanks to the artistic partnerships of the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles.