The Belarusian State Academy of Music 220030 Republic of Belarus 30 Internatsionalnaya St., Minsk Tel.: +375 172274942 Fax: +375 172065501 E-mail: international {а} tut.by, bgam {а} lingvo.minsk.by

At the same time, Belarusian musical art and education reflects national traits. They are characterized by profound national originality and genetic ties with the West-European musical culture, despite the fact that processes of national self-identification in modern Belarusian culture have become increasingly complicated and sensitive. We have not forgotten, however, our rich historical heritage and make a lot of attempts, especially in the course of the last several years, to study and reconstruct the best of our cultural past.

One must take into consideration that while in Russia, the involvement of the European cultural process dates back to Peter the Great’s reforms (XVIII century) only on the site of modern Belarus it was felt much earlier. This helps to explain why the principle characteristics of Belarusian culture, with all its variety, are undoubtedly deeply incorporated into the course of European music tradition. This idea leads to many important conclusions, one of which being that the regularities of formation and recent development of Belarusian professional music are typologically much closer to similar phenomena in the European region than in the case of some of our Eastern neighbors. This is why today, when we feel much more independent in creating and proving our own national ideas of modern education in the sphere of music, we appeal both to the best of Russian and European experience. Belarusian professional musical education leans upon the best traditions of Russian and West-European musical art. At the same time it carries on all the contradict ory characteristics of the educational system of the former USSR with its total centralization, unification of educational process, which leads in its turn towards a certain ignorance of personality factors.

All the above-mentioned ideas and factors influenced to a great extent a core of music educators concentrated in the Academy of Music. This group of musicians, teachers and administrators has been busy recently with the elaboration of a solid scientific background for reforming the whole system of music education in the republic. Some years ago the Concept of Professional Education in the Field of Arts was created within the framework of functioning the “CULTURE” state scientific and technical program, which became one of the most important program documents for all the people involved in this work. One of the main goals of this Concept is the idea of national revival, actualization of historical and cultural heritage as a kernel of sovereignization of Belarus and the building up a national system of artistic education within it. In accordance with this program we try to solve a number of problems having not only international significance, but also those specific to our region.

The reform of the musical education in Belarus thus affects the following levels:

Content. This level is determined by the interaction of the artistic education and the art itself which determines, in turn, the optimum ratio of general and special education, theoretical and practical professional training, stages (“steps”) of training, the essence of life-long teaching, etc. Overcoming the negative trends in our system of music education, of which we are very much aware, is possible acting on the principles of the priority of general human values; national tradition of education, humanism as a form of implementing an individual approach to the creative development of a person; democratization, depolitization and deideologization of the teaching-upbringing process; and, in general, dialogue between the content of the national educational system and the modern stage of world music art.

Didactics. The imperative nature is a specific feature of a model of our modern artistic education. It is a didactic principle that stems from the so-called “production” (industrial) method of musical training, according to which an educational institution was viewed as one of the “industries” of the age of total planning. The failure of such an approach is obvious since the imperativity is leveling the main prerequisite of professional artistic education: an individual approach to the development of a creative personality. Thus, a transition is necessary to the principle of the development of a personality of an artist on the basis of creativity as the method of teaching and upbringing.

Structure. As the European experience proves, democratization of education inevitably leads to its diversification – increase of types, volumes and formats of education. The main difference of the state system of artistic education is in its slim structural integrity. The special problem of the reform today is implementation of factors of a multi-level and multi-model system of higher music education.

Management (organization). The main target of this level is the determination of competence limits of the bodies of state management of educational institutions. The function of the state management is executed through the system of state attestation of specialists. The difference in the types of educational institutions is compensated for by means of accrediting them on the basis of the standards of education.

Law. The legal basis of the reform of artistic education is formed by the laws of the Republic of Belarus on culture, education and languages. At the same time the further legislative acts are necessary for aesthetic education, for higher artistic school, for certification of arts experts, for accreditation of educational institutions of arts, etc.

Nevertheless, recent achievements of Belarusian school are considerable. The Belarusian piano school in particular has today been internationally recognized as testifying to a high level of professional training. An excellent level of virtuosic skills of young Belarusian pianists goes together with the highest quality of pianistic intonation, which consists not only of the attainment of ideal acoustic results in the process of performing, but also of solution of variety of complicated semantic tasks of musical interpretation, this idea based on the adaptation not only of theoretical ideas of famous piano teachers of Russia and Europe, but also on a long-lasting performance tradition, which many of our piano professors inherited straight from their hands.

The modern system of musical education in Belarus is forming a unique model. Studying it could enable one to penetrate into the core of musical education of the whole East-European region. The latter, in its turn, could be considered necessary for successful process of integrating the European space of professional music education.