News

19 February, 2020

The past year has been full of changes for everyone. The situation here in Central Karelia is quite calm at the moment and here in Central Karelia Music School we have been able to have almost all our lessons in contact teaching, excluding a few bigger adult groups. Since December, there have been no audiences in our concerts and we have live streamed them for the students’ families to see.

Last autumn our music school was granted a notable grant by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture for acquiring equipment and education for distance teaching. Now we are more prepared than last spring, if we were to start giving distance lessons again, as we did last spring.

DISTANCE LEARNING MUSIC PLAYSCHOOL AND DAY CARE MUSIC PLAYSCHOOL
Since the spring 2020, our music school has offered a possibility to take distance lessons for music playschool in addtition to regular contact lessons. This way the safety of the contact lessons is improved, as families can stay home with their children with mild flu symptoms and still participate in the lessons. Children can either participate only in the distance lessons or both the contact and distance lessons.

Children all over Finland, or even all over the world, can take part in these distance lessons. At the moment, we have some participants from other parts of Finland as well. All the participants receive a package including small instruments to use during the lessons.

Since last autumn, we have also offered music playschool lessons to six day care centers in the town of Liperi. In addition to the lessons, the music playschool teachers educate the day care teachers to use music playschool methods in their day care teaching.

TEMPO ORCHESTRA TRAINING
The Central Karelia Music School is developing new ways to increase accessibility. Last autumn we launched Tempo orchestra training for primary school students in the town of Polvijärvi in co-operation with their primary school.

The background of the project is the world-famous El Sistema music education program founded in Venezuela, in which ”the mission is not to create professional musicians, but to promote the collective practice of music through symphony orchestras and choruses in order to help children and young people in achieving their full potential and acquiring values that favor their growth” (see source here).

The project included weekly 15-minute private lessons in addition to one-hour orchestra rehearsal. Students could choose either violin, viola or cello as their instrument. All the lessons, orchestra and the rental instruments were free of charge for the students for the fall semester. There were no requirements or entrance exams for the students participating.

”The students have been very enthusiastic about the project and they have enjoyed making music together. Everyone found an intrument suitable for them and they are very much looking forward to their first concert,” says Einari Kärnä, the violin teacher of Tempo.

The free-of-charge project ended last December, but all the participants wanted to carry on with the orchestra and lessons an enrolled as official students in our school.

ITÄMYRSKY – ”EASTERN TEMPEST”
Central Karelia Music School takes part in the Itämyrsky or ”Eastern Tempest” Symphony Orchestra which includes students and their teachers from five different music schools in Eastern Finland. The orchestra had a few rehearsals in different towns and also one concert last autumn before the situation with the pandemic put group rehearsals and concerts on hold. Hopefully the orchestra will be able to play together again later in the spring.