Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía
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The Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía (The Reina Sofía School of Music) was founded in Madrid in 1991 with the aim of offering Spain a centre for professional training, which would be aimed at young talented musicians. This way, gifted Spanish artists no longer needed to leave the country in order to receive the advanced teaching they required.
The school admits students from all over the world, but is committed to supporting young musicians from Spain, Portugal and Latin America. This compensates for a certain shortfall in musical teaching in those countries.
The school is now internationally recognised, and welcomes students of all nationalities, but has a particular focus on students from Spain, Portugal and Latin America. It boasts an exceptional group of teachers of recognised international prestige.
The Governing Body of the Reina Sofía Music School is presided over by a Board of Patrons, which was founded in 1991. This board reports directly to the Board of Patrons of the Albéniz Foundation (Fundación Albéniz). Moreover, the school is also supported by an Academic Committee consisting of 40 personalities from the worlds of culture and politics, many of whom have been, or still are, active members of the teaching staff and the management committee.
The President of Honour of the School Board is Her Majesty Queen Sofía, who constantly encourages the various activities which the school promotes, and distinguishes the Board with her presence.
The new site for the school is the historic Plaza de Oriente, near the Royal Palace (Palacio Real) and the Royal Theatre (Teatro Real), two edifices which symbolise both Spanish history and Spanish musical heritage. The new school will be based in calle Requena, in a building which used to house the School of Dramatic Art and Dance (La Escuela de Arte Dramático y Danza); hence the Reina Sofía Music School will maintain its artistic and pedagogical spirit. The original site of the school was in Pozuelo on the outskirts of Madrid.
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[edit] History
The forerunners of the school were the International Piano Competition in Santander, which Paloma O’Shea inaugurated in 1972, and Master Classes, which were organized, as from 1981, in collaboration with the Universidad Internacional de Verano Menéndez Pelayo in the same city. Great maestros such as Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta and Alicia de Larrocha, all offered advice during the initial phases of the project, as well as in the choice of teaching staff.
They were both members of the Academic Committee and patrons of the school. They also acted as advisors to the department heads. Furthermore, Federico Sopeña and Enrique Franco, key figures in twentieth-century Spanish music, also collaborated on the project.
[edit] The Beginning
The Reina Sofía School of Music was founded with the aim of establishing a teaching centre which would breed musicians par excellence. Thanks to support provided by both public institutions and private sources, students who are able to enjoy this individualized instruction, have had the privilege of receiving an elite education from some of the great teachers and artists of the international music world.
[edit] Teaching Staff
The Reina Sofía School of Music boasts teachers who have been outstanding in the execution of both spheres of their abilities: in their music and in their teaching. Hence the teaching staff is composed of leading figures of renowned international prestige.
The team is complemented each year by teachers who are invited onto the Master Class programme and bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the work of the school.
[edit] Artistic-Academic Activities
The development of the curricula follows a basic premise of classical training: individualized instruction. A personal evaluation of the student by the teacher, who is graded by the staff at the school, along with other disciplines geared towards his or her overall training, allows the design of a made-to-measure programme that will meet the potential of each student. This programme ensures a complete learning cycle, integrating different facets of the student’s personality.
The duration of a student’s stay at the school is directly related to his or her learning capabilities; although the average is between two and four years, a professor may decide that students may complete their studies when they have reached a sufficiently high level of artistic maturity.
The overall teaching plan, then, covers training specific to the instrument or voice in the performance section. This is complemented by academic disciplines, artistic projection and the stimulus provided by seminars related to complementary training. This academic plan consists of the following departments:
- Performance Section
- Academic Section
- Artistic Section
- Complementary Training Section
- Master-class programme
- Audiovisual presentation programme
The school has also developed an on-line education programme, in collaboration with five leading European schools. It has created an educational musical portal aimed at students, teachers, scholars or enthusiasts of music alike, in which Master Classes are given by some of the great music maestros. This helps to preserve our musical heritage in the form of classes given by such maestros that would otherwise be lost. The portal is called Magister Musicae.
[edit] Scholars
The main aim of the school is to promote “universality”; it aspires to bring together students from any social or geographic background, with no other requirements apart from talent and the will to undertake a training regime designed to overcome the difference between technical ability and artistic expression, thus placing the student in direct contact with the public. Its mission is not only to create soloists, but musicians capable of being easily integrated into leading chamber orchestras, who are able to win prizes or be admitted to professorships or department headships in schools and conservatories. The idea is that young musicians will return, within a few years, to the very stages where they performed as students, as first-rate professionals.
Students from abroad or from outside Madrid can be accommodated at the Students’ Residence (la Residencia de Estudiantes). The Residence is designed to enrich relationships between students, the environment and teachers, with the idea that their artistic life and coexistence be all the more fulfilling.
