JMM is a national NGO that works from, with and for
the young people, developing their creativity and supporting their
initial public promotion in the field of music arts. JMM strives to
encourage and match the need for direct communication between the
young people and the audience in general with music and with the other
cultural values as well.
Created on artistic and pedagogical basis, JMM
integrates young people regardless of political, religious, national
or language background, pleading for generations of young people who
will have cosmopolitan, humanistic approaches in their own individual
and global creation and development.
Created almost 40 years ago, JMM has proven those
principles with more than 5.000 organized manifestations and concerts,
gathering more than thousand artists as soloists and more than 5.000
participants and program animators in various ensembles, followed by
almost one million as audience, mostly young people.
By all means, JMM has so far, achieved the title of
the biggest cultural movement in Republic of Macedonia.
The very first professional music institutions were
founded in Macedonia during the period of 1945-50: the Macedonian
National Theatre’s Opera and Ballet, the Macedonian Philharmonic
Orchestra, the Concert Direction, the primary and high school music
institutions’ system.
Although the Music Academy was not existing
(founded in 1966), one generation of young musicians, professionally
educated outside Macedonia, performed intensively on the Macedonian
concert and opera scene. Yet, the bigger part of the potential
audience in the country that cherishes a long tradition for ethno
music, remained untouched by classical music, which had little
traditions behind.
The foundation that matched the need for spiritual
development of the audience and the need for artistic creation of the
young artists was slowly developing. The then existing “Associations
of Classical Music Friends” are a unique kind of
predecessors to the Jeunesses Musicales movement in Macedonia.
The first local Jeunesses Musicales organization
was founded in the town of Bitola in 1963, its President being the
young pianist Milica Sperovic.
The national JMM organization was founded in
Skopje, on Januaru 31st 1964, its first President being
Dragoslav Ortakov, composer and musicologist.
In the 70s, the JMM work was oriented towards
several types of programs:
- youth school concerts, organized in the schools and
universities, cultural houses, museums, cinema halls – with
carefully selected music according to the animation needs and
followed by professional comments by animators and professors;
- organized activities for young people from the local communities
“by train to opera and concerts”, in co-operation with the
Macedonian Opera and the Macedonian Philharmonic;
- music poetry evenings oriented towards the high school students
audience;
- live music lectures subjecting classical music, jazz and ethno.
As an example, the Prokofiev’s “Petja and the
wolf” performed by the Macedonian Philharmonics (conducted by F.
Muratovski) and with the actress Milica Stojanovska, was performed in
120 kinder-gardens and primary schools! In 1966 the first JMM ensemble
was founded: the chamber choir, guided by the conductor Aleksandar
Lekovski.
The JMM program activities normally follow the
needs of the young musicians and the needs of the Macedonian
audience… Therefore we consider it quite normal to change and
develop new kinds of activities according to those needs.
Therefore, in the 80s, most developed were the
so-called JM Clubs where young people gathered and discussed the
classical music, interpretation and especially the development of the
new aesthetic styles in the music at the end of the century.
In 1995, after two years of preparations and
international participation, JMM was admitted as full member of the
Jeunesses Musicales International. During this period the JMM
activities focus over wide presentations of the best Macedonian young
musicians, the work on the Summer Music Camp in Ohrid, the
international co-operation and exchanges, and most of all, building
stronger ties and joint venture projects with music institutions and
organizations in Macedonia.
In the last two years a special effort has been placed upon the JMM
audio production, thus making stronger relations between the young
performers and the wider audience. |
