Author, presenter and pianist: Sara Marianovich
Bringing up young people, nurturing the youth, orientating children at a very early age towards the beautiful – these are the fundamental tasks of all institutions and individuals now that a lot of relevant values are losing their importance, faced with probably an already uncontrollable flood of various activities, products and manifestations, profitable as they often are, but of indefinite or doubtful purpose, cause or quality.
Multimedia project “Following the Traces of Sound” created by the pianist Sara Marianovich consists of a book with a compact disk (the core of the project), multimedia concerts (for children of different ages, starting from nursery school), and artistic video spots. Each of the project forms has a specific approach to classical music so that the music could be understandable to a wide circle of listeners, irrespective of their age, education, culture, social status, nationality, etc. All the project forms are mutually dependent and complement each other: music recorded on the 2 compact disks of the ‘book – CD’ unit “Following the Traces of Sound” has also been used for artistic video spots, while the artistic video spots themselves are a constituent part of multimedia concerts at which the ‘book – CD’ unit is presented. In this way a complete symbiosis of the entire project is achieved. At the same time this approach makes it possible to increase the number of connoisseurs and lovers of this kind of music, but above all, to form the type of serious, or classical, music lover at the earliest age of life. The project, as well as all other activities that may proceed from it, embraces numerous aspects, such as: educational, cultural, social, and even therapeutic.
In the 2007 / 08 academic year Sara Marianovich organized several multimedia concerts for children from a kindergarten in Nova Varos, some of which were recorded by the national television: RTS (the program “Trace in Space”, May 2008) and Happy TV (the program “Smucalice”, June, 2008).
During her 15-year stay in Madrid, Spain, where she worked and studied to perfect her artistic capabilities, Sara Marianovich got valuable experience of working with children while she, as an MA in piano playing, held piano lessons and seminars for children in numerous musical establishments all over Europe and held a lot of concerts specially intended for children of the youngest age.
At multimedia concerts Sara Marianovich plays live shorter compositions of different character for solo piano (works of Schumann, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, etc.), then she talks with the children so as to prepare them for emotional experience of the music that follows (either live piano music or video spot music), and at the same time displays artistic video spots on the screen. When she speaks with the children, she does not describe music. These conversations have a wider educational content: they return children to the basic values. Through the music the children get acquainted with different branches of knowledge, such as geography, history, biology, zoology, and so on. At the same time these conversations foster imagination, develop communication skills, sensitivity, and solidarity; they improve concentration, develop concern for protecting nature, taking care of animals, protecting environment, etc. All this contributes to the improvement of life quality. Through such content children are given an example of the right behaviour and the right reaction to various life situations in which they can find themselves at that age, and in this way they are prepared for life. At the same time, this approach encourages children’s interest: they learn to give attention to certain things, to be involved with and to discover more about them; in this way they discover, at a very early age, for which professions they have a natural ability. With the help of video spots, children familiarize themselves, in the most natural way, with classical music, as it is much easier to understand and “feel” classical music with the help of visual images that accompany music and match the content and development of a musical composition. At some of 11 video spots one can see magnificent scenery of the Uvac Reserve (the lake, meanders, glades, rocks, etc), a flying griffon vulture. By combining live piano music, conversations with children, and artistic video spots it is possible to captivate the attention of children, even the youngest of them, during the entire multimedia concert.
The project was warmly praised by the world-famous conductor Zubin Mehta, who said, among other things, that “Following the Traces of Sound” is “exactly what is necessary for children: to inspire and discipline them with music preparing them for the hardships of life“. More information: www.sara-marianovich.com |
