Institutional change is being called for to renew higher music education (HME). But what institutional pressures, specifically, are driving these calls, and how are HME organisations responding to pressures to change? By turning to institutional theory, we lean on the concept of institutional isomorphism to shed light on how HME organisations may be navigating pressures to appear legitimate in the field to secure organisational survival. Drawing from a comparative case study of two HME organisations from Norway and the Netherlands, in which strategic plans and interview transcripts with students and professors have been analysed, we discuss how change processes are intertwined with an organisational quest for legitimacy. The findings suggest that there are overarching pressures to change in the field of HME and that variables in the institutional environment indicate how processes of change may unfold. Finally, implications of this unveiled landscape are discussed.