For centuries, Macau's schooling has embraced laissez-faire market principles, a stasis that from AY2016/17 is being changed by the government offering schools tuition coupons conditional on their adoption of a common school curriculum. A study of part of this new common curriculum, the development of a music curriculum for junior secondary schools in Macau, addresses three research questions: (a) What are music teachers' perceptions and how do these frame the implementation of Macau's common music curriculum? (b) Do music teachers' expectations align with those of the central government? (c) Do music teachers perceive that they impact on or are impacted by this innovation? Discussion of the findings highlights a controversy about the role of teachers within curriculum development--should teachers be center staged (Lawton (2012 [1980]) or is this view an oversimplification based on false assumptions of a social democratic tradition (Whitty (1985, 2012 [1981])?