Cremona, the Mousiké project expands and strengthens with new proposals for nursery and primary schools

Cremona, the Mousiké project expands and strengthens with new proposals for nursery and primary schools.

The City of Cremona, continuing the commitment aimed at valorisation of culture in general and in particular of that musical, has already launched, through the Educational Policies and Instruction Sector, initiatives aimed at encouraging musical practice in schools. An activity that, starting from the current school year, thanks to “Walter Stauffer” Musicology Center Foundation, also sees an important implementation of the project Mousike, which is enriched with new proposals: it will in fact include the project Violin goes to school and the laboratory String's School with a development for the 2021/2022, 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 school years and a three-year contribution of 100 thousand euros by the foundation itself. This contribution will be allocated to the project manager, BeMyMusic srl, identified through a public notice. The subjects involved in the promotion of the project, in addition to “Walter Stauffer” Musicology Center Foundation, I'm the Municipality of Cremona, the Institute of Higher Education “A. Stradivarius” e the Cremona Tre Comprehensive Institute who have signed a specific cooperation agreementFurthermore, the project will be able to count, as always, on the active contribution of the master Gianluigi Bencivenga who has always been its coordinator.

The new project was presented on the morning of March 18th, in the Consultation Hall of the Town Hall, present the Councilor for Education Maura Ruggeri, Flanked by Silvia Bardelli, head of the Municipality's Educational Policies Service, and Marco Allegri, contact person for the Municipality for the project, Alessandro Tantardini, president of the “Walter Stauffer” Musicology Center Foundation, Filomena Bianco, director of the Territorial School Office, Daniele Pitturelli, director of the “Antonio Stradivari” Institute of Higher Education, Laura Rossi, director of the Cremona Tre Comprehensive Institute, and of course Gianluigi Bencivenga, project coordinator. For the occasion Lucia Camisaschi, violinist of the Mousiké youth orchestra, performed first the Ukrainian national anthem and, to follow, the song Russian fantasy of the Ukrainian musician Leo Portnoff.

As illustrated during the press conference, the agreement provides first and foremost the maintenance and development of the Mousiké project and the youth orchestra of the same name, born in 2006 as a simple orchestral laboratory, always supported by the “MG Vida” secondary school and by the Walter Stauffer Musicology Center Foundation. With the years the lab It has become in the orchestra and has achieved a high artistic and musical depth, annually involving over seventy children aged eight years and above, with a periodic turnover of participants which makes the group in continuous and dynamic evolution. The youth orchestra represents an opportunity aimed at all those who, playing a musical instrument, who want to try their hand at ensemble music: is an educational and training experience which helps kids grow in their own identity. The project Mousike it also includes quarterly thematic, vocal and listening guide workshops dedicated primarily to the fourth grade classes of the city's primary schools.

From the current school year Mousikè will expand through two actions dedicated to stringed instruments, aimed at pupils in municipal and state nursery schools and state primary schools, with a view to a verticalization of music studios through the two projects described below:

1. Violin goes to school, dedicated to municipal and state nursery schools and to the first, second and third classes of primary schools, with the aim of accompanying children in a concrete musical experience that stimulates them to the invention, creativity and the music as a whole, using a single-stringed string instrument. From the 2022-2023 school year Violin goes to school will offer a free training course aimed at teachers of the city's nursery and primary schools by teachers from the A Stradivari institute to spread and support basic musical skills. A. is also planned in-depth path e teaching support more specific dedicated to the San Felice, San Giorgio and Castello nursery schools as well as to the first, second and third classes of the Realdo Colombo primary school.
2. String's School laboratory, aimed at the fourth and fifth classes of the Realdo Colombo primary school, to increase the study of stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello and double bass) to complete the musical training offer already present in the musical lower secondary school "MG Vida”. The children will subsequently be able to be included in the Mousikè youth orchestra.

The overall path enriched, as described, with the new offers aimed at nursery and primary schools, places Than we the foundations for the construction of an effective and significant vertical curriculum of musical studies and for the training of increasingly aware and competent citizens from the point of view of musical culture.

The Walter Stauffer Center for Musicology Foundation of Cremona is one of main Italian private institutions for the promotion of musical culture. Incorporated in 1970 a Cremona by will of the Italian-Swiss patron and entrepreneur Walter Stauffer, the Foundation aims to promote and support advanced musical education for string players, the teaching of traditional Cremonese violin making and research in the musicological field. In the 1985, the Foundation establishes the Stauffer Academy, an ambitious educational project to support future generations of musicians, to whose creation some of the most authoritative Italian masters contributed. Through a far-sighted program of full coverage scholarships, the Stauffer Foundation supports all the students of its Academy, enhancing their merit and talent. The Foundation is also a member of the main musical and cultural institutions of the city of Cremona, including the Ponchielli Theater Foundation, Antonio Stradivari Violin Museum Foundation and Claudio Monteverdi Conservatory, supports the International School of Violin Making and the Department of Musicology and Cultural Heritage of Cremona, promoting professional training and academic research, through the activation of a research doctorate, support for the publication of scientific texts and the establishment of the "Stauffer Fund”, a precious library collection offered to the public for consultation. The Foundation has always supported the project since its inception in 2006 Mousike by providing an economic contribution that made its ongoing annual implementation possible.

The “Antonio Stradivari” Higher Secondary Education Institute was born in 1938, with the name of International School of Violin Making in Cremona. From 2010 the training offer is further expanded thanks to the establishment of the Liceo Musicale in Cremona, reserved for a few institutes throughout the national territory. The Institute, as leader of the musical network “Stradivari Square”, is positioned as a point of reference for music schools in the province of Cremona, creating synergies e connessioni among the various training and educational activities proposed.

The Cremona Tre Comprehensive Institute (IC3) is characterized in the city area as an institute also with musical direction. Thanks to vertical curriculum sharing, the IC3 boasts a musical design which acts as an integrative backdrop to the wholeInstitute training offer and which develops vertically starting from nursery school. The Three-Year Training Offer Plan (PTOF) of IC3 for the three-year period 2019/20 – 2021/22, establishes which educational goals identified by the school the strengthening of skills in musical practice and culture, in art and art history, in cinema, in the techniques and media of production and diffusion of images and sounds, also through the involvement of museums and of other public and private institutions operating in these sectors.