Itineraries - Festival Adjudications

Review: 'Star' system inhibits many talented persons

The "star" system governing the musical of Canada is destructive, sterile and a source of misery to many talented people. So says Damiana Bratuz, internationally known performing artist, teacher, lecturer and author.
Dr. Bratuz is in Thunder Bay conducting a four-week master class. To build a sound musical culture, Bratuz says, well-trained musicians must be part of all aspects of the art. The star system, dominating the training and thoughts of so many students leaves a large gap in other music-related occupations.
"If you're not a star, you're a failure, according to the North American philosophy," Bratuz says. This wastes a tremendous amount of talent, she says, as many of the skilled musicians should be filling the role of acoustic experts, research and study ancient instruments, work in film or as concert agents, or very importantly, become critics.

In North America, the music critic is often a journalist with little background, she says. In contrast, European critics must be trained musicians who possess the expertise to criticize knowledgeably. In a review, Bratuz insists, opinion is not enough - educated opinion is a must. A great musical culture requires trained people in all roles.
Bratuz was born on the bonder between Italy and Yugoslavia into a family which has produced organists and singers. Ballet was her first love, followed by voice, but her studies of both were interrupted by the onslaught of war. That she pursued her third choice, the piano, has been of the greatest advantage to teachers and students the world over.
Bratuz's training reflects her multi-cultural background. After earning her Masters diploma at the Trieste Conservatory with great distinction, she went on to further studies in Italy, Salzburg, Paris, St. Louis and the University of Indiana where she was the first woman to earn a doctorate in music.
After completing her studies in the United States on a Fulbright Fellowship, Bratuz chose to come to Canada because of the strength of our multi-cultural society.

EXPERT
Throughout North America, Bratuz has become known for her studies and publications relating to the early twentieth century Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. Before leaving Europe she was she was renowned for her work on Schumann.
Canadian music students are victims of what Bratuz describes as an "upside-down pyramid" system of education.
Education begins at the bottom and more is added each year. Then upon arrival at university, around age 18, students are confronted with the real work, she says. Discipline, never a large part of many students' training before their arrival at university, is suddenly uppermost on all minds. Old habits have to be broken and new ones formed if possible in four short years, Bratuz said. Students should be reaching their pinnacle by the time they set foot in a university, not just beginning, according to her theory.
"I am criticized for not understanding democracy," Bratuz said. Discipline seems almost a bad word here in North America, but I still believe it should be taught from the beginning.
Bratuz says her dream is to see the establishment of a school like several that exist in the United States. The North Carolina School of the Arts provides a place where all the arts can be studied - music, drama, dance - and there is also a mixture of ages.

SCHOOL
Bratuz says she has antagonized others with her questions as to why a musical counterpart of the National Ballet School has never been organized in Canada.
She says during the numerous master classes she presents across Canada, she has been able to discover a nucleus of very responsive teachers who are aware of the imitations of the system they work under.
Bratuz says it gives her the greatest satisfaction to find out her concepts are being passed down through her students to their pupils as well as down through the ranks of the many Canadian music teachers she has lectured.
It heralds the beginning of the great musical culture she visualizes in this country.

(By April Lindgren, The Chronicle Journal, Thunder Bay, Ontario, July 1979)