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PRESENTATION
OF YOUNG TALENTS
The emergence of mass communication called
‘Internet’ and the availability of information from all fields,
including the field of music with all its aspects, has lessened to a
certain extent our handicap and our ‘limited space’ phobia. The
nostalgia for some past times, the times of the previous generations
or the period of the former Yugoslavia, which I experienced only
indirectly through a discussion with the older generations, is now
overcome and I hope that the end has come to the disputes about our
roots and of course, our continual demonstration of our identity and
provenience before the world. Apart from the fact that the existing
economic problems compel the individual to compromise with themselves
and the others, according to the level of education, especially the
level of the musical education, which is the concern of this
convention, young artists in Macedonia do not fall behind the young
artists from other countries.
However, the development of art and the presentation abroad depends
and will depend on the economics, politics and above all, on the
national culture. This presentation of the young artists abroad
depends on the level of their education. In Macedonia, there are four
secondary musical schools in Skopje, Bitola, Tetovo and Shtip and the
Faculty of Musical Art in Skopje. This shows our country is equipped
with the requirements for musical education. However, whether these
schools are prepared to educate the young at the level of education
attained in the similar musical schools in the world is a different
issue. The comparison shows differences.
First, we should show the differences between the elementary musical
schools in our country and the world. Those in Macedonia do not have
well conceived in our country and the world. Those in Macedonia do not
have well conceived program of the subject Musical Education and this
program is generally not attended to. I can not recall in my personal
experience, as I believe you can not too, that classical or even any
other kind of music was listened to or the history of music from the
renaissance till present days was studied in the musical classes. No
general information about the most famous composers like Bach, Mozart
or Beethoven was given either. Attention that is more noteworthy was
given only to choir singing.
I found out through Internet that in the musical schools in the other
countries, the students not only regularly listen to music in class
and the older talented students get special classes in solfeggio,
history of music, theory and harmony, but also these students or those
noticed by their teachers as more talented than the others can choose
studies of an instrument in private schools authorized but not
financed by the state, but by sponsors.
What is the situation in our country?
There are several private schools in Skopje, which do not meet the
criteria of the state professional schools. I will single out one of
them as more interesting than the others in a new and different way.
That is the school for studies of jazz music run by the drummer Oliver
Duev and the guitarist Toni Kitanovski. All the subjects studied in
the secondary musical school are studied in this school and every
instrument in which the students might show interest. The school is
open for students of any age and charges 100 DM for 12 classes per
month. This price can be considered moderate, but, in the present
circumstances, it is not a price that many can afford to pay. The fact
is that many would attend this school because students work with very
good teachers.
The musical education in the elementary schools is perhaps most
important, or should we say represents a foundation for the further
education of not only those who are going to continue with a
professional musical careers, but for everybody in this country
because no other discipline will provide, among else, spiritual
development. However, all this is engendered by the level of learning
among the teachers in the elementary schools themselves. The
circumstances or the programs should be found ‘guilty’ again. For
example, the Faculty for Pedagogy, unlike in other states, pays very
little attention to the art subjects. The situation in the general
secondary schools is similar. I have some information that in some
schools students are prompted to find music, from the renaissance
period for example, to listen to it in the classes, to recognize its
characteristics and to compare them with the characteristics of other
musical periods. It is a pity this is not the case everywhere and it
will take a while to reach real professional standards in the classes
in Musical Education because the improvement can not be based solely
on the teachers’ enthusiasm.
The education in the secondary musical school and the further
education at the Faculty for Musical Art in Skopje requires that
certain conditions should be fulfilled such as dependable previous
musical knowledge which, as I have already said, is insufficient in
the musical education to this point. For this reason, the study
program of the secondary musical schools includes elementary musical
education. This handicaps and slows down the students who have already
attended elementary musical school or those who demonstrate more
musical talent than the others. If the practice of accepting students
with no previous musical education, then, it is necessary to provide
special classes for the talented students and those with previous
musical knowledge, and they should not to be put in the same basket
with those who have just started because the talented will not advance
and will retreat back and start learning from the start. Apart from
that, the conditions in our musical schools, both the secondary school
and the faculty, are minimal. There are technically defective pianos,
the hall for choir rehearsals in the secondary school is used for
student concerts and at the Faculty, there is only one concert hall
often used for other purposes. There is no special room for listening
to music due to the fact that there are no technical conditions for
its existence and even more important, there is no large selection of
music either. The library, which can be used only by the students at
the Faculty, possesses a few records and even less CDs.
As far as the basic, necessary musical education is concerned, the
Faculty of Musical Art does not fall behind the rest in the world,
which is confirmed by the successful studies of our students in other
countries. Nevertheless, our Faculty does not offer, for example,
special studies of film music or theatre music, electronic music,
computer music, and improvisation or until recently, studies of
authentic folk instruments. There are no special interdisciplinary
studies, which would compare music with theatre, television, medicine,
mathematics, philosophy or sociology. These issues are of current
interest and have been studied in the musical centers in the world for
a significant period of time and here just partially, within the
studies of musicology. The department for ethnomusicology studies the
Macedonian folklore in the main, which on one hand is positive thing,
but on the other there are no musical records or other recorded
material from other countries in the world, nor possibilities for the
students to travel our of Macedonia in order to study the folklore or
a certain country and compare it with the Macedonian folklore. These
students should attend compulsory studies of at least one folk
instrument but at the faculty, this is left to their individual
interest. Students of musicology have no opportunities to attend
festivals not even in our country, such as ‘Struga musical autumn’
or ‘Interfest-Bitola’, which would help them, acquires some
experience as students.
In order to improve the education of the students, the education of
the educators should certainly be improved. The question imposes
itself whether they have had opportunities to improve their knowledge
abroad in order to transfer it to our students. However, besides many
disadvantages, there are many positive results. I will list several of
them: the well-known work of the several professors educated in
Russia, mostly from the piano department, who contributed to the
breakthrough or large number of our students abroad and their
performance at highly esteemed international competitions; the
computers at the Faculty which can be used by all student and the
access to Internet; the new equipment, the electronic studio which
would enable the students to get acquainted with tonal recording of
music and enable the students of composition to create a permanent
recording of their work; the lectures by a large number of foreign and
Macedonian professors on interesting topics held last year and which
should certainly happen in future. Perhaps, all these issues lead to
another topic, but all these conditions are necessary to help our
students get recognition abroad. A certain policy of education is
necessary, as well as special programs which would allow full
development of the young musicians’ talents, such as providing
education with well-known professors from other countries for some of
them in the areas of their specialty or the instruments they are
playing, whether during their studies or after. We should help our
students get presentation abroad with modest financial means, so that
they could later transfer the knowledge and the quality they have
acquired abroad back in Macedonia.
In order to help our talents get recognition internationally we should
certainly, first apply already confirmed formulas used by other
countries which take special care of their talents in all fields
including music. That involves the improvement of the entire, but
above all, the basic musical educational system. That is the place
where the talents are born. Their growth then, should be an affair or
the cultural policy, which should finance and support the talents
exclusively. They should be provided with the best education at the
best schools and with special programs. However weak Macedonian
economy might be, it can create, by a good selection of real talents,
a significant fund of performers, who, perhaps, we will have rare
opportunities to see on our stages, but they will make Macedonia known
abroad.
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