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INFOBULLETIN based on the Minutes of the 9Th Meeting of the EMU Presidium
Espoo Music Institute, Finland, 14 and 15 December 2001
Present were:
Jan van Muilekom (president), Gerd Eicker (vice-president), Wilhelm Dahl, Timo Veijola, Viktor Zadnik, Timo Klemettinen and Even Fossum Svendsen (present at point 5), Gerrie Koops (secretary general, report)
Excused were:
Mario Sperenzi
1. Opening of the meeting and adoption of the agenda
The president Jan van Muilekom opened the meeting and welcomed all participants. He thanked Timo Veijola and the Finnish Association for their hospitality and for arranging the meeting. Mario Sperenzi had informed the presidium that because of medical reasons he was unable to attend this meeting. However, the presidium has been invited to hold their next meeting in Bolzano, Italy from 8 till 10 March 2002.
2. Approval of the minutes of the 8th Presidium meeting held on 18 October in Ljubljana (Slovenia)
- An acknowledgement of the draft proposal on continuation with IMEE has been received from the European Union.
- Presidium meetings in October 2002 (Canary Islands) and January 2003 (Hungary):
3. Developments/general remarks
- The president gave the floor to the Presidium to report on any outstanding developments within his/her country/association.
Timo Veijola reported that:
The Finnish Association will join the Nordisk Musik- och Kulturskole Union as an
observer.
. 2002 will be the year against drugs for the Finnish music schools.
Wilhelm Dahl reported:
. on a music/circus project to be jointly organized by 5 music schools in among others Belgium,
Holland and Norway.
This project will be subsidised by the European Union for 1.5 million Euro.
Last month, the Norwegian Association was awarded the National Italian Television Prize for the best television programme.
Gerd Eicker reported that:
. In June 2002 the VdM will organise the 'Days of Music Schools" for the 800 music schools in Germany. The Bundespräsident will open the central day on which 1000 visitors will be invited.
. The Swiss Association will start a self-evaluation system based on the German model.
. Jan van Muilekom announced that the new Association for Music and Arts schools 'Kunstengilde' in the Netherlands would be operational by 1 January 2002. Jan van Muilekom has been elected vice-president/secretary of the starting board. Gerrie Koops will carry on her work as office-manager in this new association. The VKV will continue as an employer's organisation, co-responsible for the content of the Collective Agreement for Arts Education. It is possible that this new association will apply to EMU for membership instead of the VKV.
- The president received two letters from Mr Bodin Starcevic, the president of the Serbian association. The first concerned membership of the EMU, as well as an invitation to give a speech at a conference in February 2002. The second informed him of a change in the chairmanship of the association.
- Wilhelm Dahl reported on the European Union 'Forum on Cultural Co-operation in Europe 2001' in Brussels last November. 300 people participated in the meeting. The 3 items discussed in workshops were: European co-operation and cultural creativity; Co-operation networks in the European cultural field; Industries and cultural activities in Europe. Wilhelm took part in the workshop - Co-operation networks in the European cultural field. The interesting discussions in this workshop made clear that culture should receive a higher priority in the new EU program. In order for this to succeed is would be important to sustain real networks in the cultural field. On the short term a research project on networks in Europe should be done.
It was agreed that in order to get the research project onto the EU program, EMU would send a letter to Mr Baer of the European Commission in Brussels as well as to Euro parliamentarians regarding the importance of both the networks, the special importance of the EMU-network and the need for a European Development Centre.
- Prolongation contacts with Poland and Czech Republic: the questionnaire for new members has been sent to Mr Jaroslav Mencl from the Czech Republic who attended the General Assembly in Slovenia. He replied some weeks ago that they are very interested in joining EMU and that it would be discussed at their next board meeting. Jan will contact him if necessary..
Jan has contacted Eliza Kujan from the Ministry of Arts in Poland. It seems that it would be advisable to contact Mr Cizek, a dignitary from the Ministry of Culture. Wilhelm will contact him.
- Receiving new countries into the EMU: Timo will contact Portugal and Madeira. He has already sent EMU information to Latvia and they informed him that a discussion has begun. Information about Lithuania has yet to be received.
- Congress in Austria in April 2002: The presidium and all EMU members have been invited to a symposium on co-operation between music schools and regular schools to be held on 18 to 20 April 2002. This symposium will be very much-focused on teachers. Viktor would try to represent EMU.
- Publication on Professional Qualification: Gerd received several missing numbers from some countries. The VdM in Bonn will work out the final version. 5000 Publications will be printed. In principal 10 will be sent to each member country. If they are interested, they can place a free order at a later date.
- Writing EMU history: The history student who had earlier shown an interest in documenting the history of the EMU cancelled at the last moment. Jan will try to find someone else. He urged board members to search for someone from their own countries as well.
- Co-operation with Eurostat: They are interested, but still busy with the Austrian statistics.
- Festival in 2006/07: EMU has not yet received any reaction on the invitation to members to nominate their association for a festival in 2006 or 2007. Jan remarked that Canary Islands and England had previously shown interest. Possible further developments in March 2002.
4. Evaluation of the General Assembly in Ljubljana
The presidium complemented Viktor Zadnik and the Slovenian Association for the professional organisation of the General Assembly. It was agreed that the meeting under Jan's chairmanship had taken place in a diplomatic, professional and relaxed atmosphere.
5. EMU's website
The president gave a welcome to Timo Klemettinen and Even Fossum Svendsen who arrived at the meeting at point 5.
Timo Klemettinen gave a short presentation on the state of the website, which is due to be launched in January. He announced that everything is running according to schedule. The graphic and technical design has been finished. At the moment the webmaster, Georgij Putulin, and webeditor, David Channon, are busy with the input of the texts, written by the president and the working group. However, to include a database with all musicschools a special application would be needed, costing approximately 5000 Euro. Therefore the budget would need to be increased, which is not possible at the moment. Therefore it was decided first to make a start with the website as we planned it.
After some debate it was decided that the scope of the website (what kind of projects could be put in the general part of the website) would also have to be discussed further in the March meeting. A proposal as to this will be presented to the General Assembly in Switzerland.
18 of the 21 member countries have already appointed a website country co-ordinator, which emphasises the huge involvement of the members in an EMU website.
In February, these contact persons will be invited to join a 2-day seminar with workshops to be held next April in Amsterdam. EMU will take care of the hosting costs. The meeting will focus on practical issues and on issues that have to do with the future: especially how to develop the website further, starting with a database but also looking for ways to create a good digital network between the European musicschools. Already earlier than April the national persons will be asked to deliver their national information.
6. Preparations for the General Assembly in Switzerland in May 2002
The presidium has been invited to hold their meeting on Monday 13 May (arrival date 12 May). The GA and the Festival from Monday 13 May till Sunday 19 May.
On Wednesday the 15th a forum has been organised by the Swiss. EMU have been asked to suggest some themes for discussion that can be presented by the president during 15 minutes. The participants of the General Assembly have been invited as participators.
The EMU themes for the forum will be:
. Music schools and public responsibility
. Music brings extra secondary values
. Music education in European society becomes more diverse every year; music makes it easier to understand each other. All themes lent from the Manifesto-text that now is being prepared.
During the GA concrete themes that have to do with the broad spectre that musicschools offer to the pupils these days will be discussed in working groups such as developments on issues like:
. Ethnic music: prepared by Germany (Klaus Jurgen Weber?)
. Contemporary music: Finland
. Musical theatre: Norway?
. Pop music: The Netherlands
. Dancing in the musicschools
. Circus: Norway
. Forms of examination
. New forms of co-operation with the conservatories
It was stressed that EMU's working program should be integrated into the themes of the working groups. Before the General Assembly we need to know what people are interested in a specific theme; questions on the themes need to be clear and material for the discussion has to be sent beforehand. Before the presentation of the results in the plenary there should be some co-ordination between the workinggroupleaders and the president. As people making a referat we might also think of directors or teachers of musicschools that are in Switserland for the Festival. With the infobulletin we will ask the members for suggestions on the theme of the broad spectre the musicschools have to offer; we will also ask them whether they can recommend people that could make a speech for us.
7. Preparations for the congress with leading politicians/officials
The presidium is very delighted that 10 countries have already supplied the names of politicians who could be invited to a congress on a development centre for EMU, which will probably be held in Spain in October/November 2002. It was emphasised that politicians might be more interested in participating if we were to define the tasks and the importance of such a centre in the invitation. To stimulate their interest EMU could ask for their advice, on getting it going by different national and/or European money (national governments giving more room to the EU to spend money on these issues) . By mentioning several projects on a national level, we could make them interested in pan - European projects like political marketing and a quality system. We have to make clear what the music schools idea is, how international EMU is, how many valuable opportunities are now unused, what a development centre could do and how it could be financed. Perhaps it is more worthwhile to build out the already existing developmentcentres in countries like Norway, Netherlands and Germany, in order to help from these the other countries. We can lend ideas from the Weimar Declaration (last parts).
It was decided that Jan van Muilekom will contact the Spanish Ministry of Education/Culture to get support for the idea that the act as co-host. Wilhelm will prepare a proposal to define the tasks and the importance of a development centre before the middle of February, which will be discussed at the next meeting or via email if we have to proceed quicker. In the meantime, Jan and Gerrie will contact the countries which have yet to react, and they will inform the contact persons of the associations about the program and the plans for the congress.
8. Going forward with the Manifesto
The presidium is in agreement with the final text of the manifesto, added as appendix 4 to the agenda.
There are15 people (or their managers) on the list who will be asked. They, or their managers, will be contacted firstly by telephone and later they will receive the text with room to sign plus a copy of the list. Presidium members will send the postal addresses of the following indicated persons to Gerrie before 15th January:
Viktor: Claudio Abbado, Yo-YO Ma
Wilhelm: Vladimir Ashkenazy, Paul McCartney, Simon Rattle
Timo: Pierre Boulez, Kystof Penderecki, Esa-Pekka Salonen
Gerd: Placido Domingo, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Ann Sophie Mutter
Jan: Bjork, Motserrat Cabellé, Umberto Eco, Sting
9. Collecting suggestions on political marketing and
10. On the co-operation between Music Schools and Regular School life
The president mentioned that it had been decided in the GA that EMU would make suggestion lists similar to those for organising a festival. People working virtually could build out this list, with the Presidium giving a trigger by offering some of the information that was presented in Slovenia.
It would be interesting to collect the most valuable suggestions from our members about their strategies.
It was agreed that these topics would lead to the first platforms within the EMU-website.
11. Training on group teaching organised by Schloss Kapfenburg
Gerd will contact Schloss Kapfenburg about the enrolments. If necessary Gerrie will ask the members in the middle of January if and how they forwarded the course program to their member school and urge them to further action..
12. Questionnaire for new members
The president described the needs of a music school as defined in the Weimar Declaration. Does the present questionnaire for new members still contain adequate information concerning membership of the EMU?
It was agreed that the present questionnaire still meets these criteria though some the questions might come in another order( first 5-13, then 1-4 and then 14-15).. Prospective members will receive the Weimar declaration together with the questionnaire and will be asked in one of the questions to underline the stating points of this declaration. The Weimar declaration should be fulfilled with the latest member countries like France. EMU office will contact them.
The questionnaire can be one of the discussion topics for the next GA
13. Other remarks
. Wilhelm Dahl recommended a brainstorming session at the next meeting centred around the possibility of developing a European Music School orchestra or a choir. Timo Veijola suggested that this could be organised in combination with Music Camps, which were very successful several years ago.
Wilhelm will make a proposal for the next meeting.
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