CONTEMPORARY MACEDONIAN PROFESSIONAL MUSIC IN MUSIC EDUCATION: CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING, REPERTOIRE DEVELOPMENT AND INTERPRETATIVE PRACTICE
Keywords:
Macedonian professional music, music education, cultural understanding, repertoire, interpretationAbstract
Music education has an important role in forming technically prepared and artistically independent musicians who are able to understand music within its cultural context. Alongside the study of established European and international repertoire, students need systematic contact with professionally composed music from their own cultural environment. This article examines contemporary Macedonian professional music as a significant educational and artistic field through which cultural understanding, repertoire development and interpretative practice can be strengthened. For the purposes of this article, the term contemporary Macedonian professional music refers to Macedonian art music, mainly developed in the post-war period and still relevant for present-day education, performance and research. The study is based on a qualitative, descriptive-analytical and interpretative approach. It considers relevant musicological and pedagogical literature, selected repertoire categories and the possible application of this repertoire at different levels of music education. The results indicate that contemporary Macedonian professional music has significant educational value as well as in the formation of artistic identity. A separate section discusses the oeuvre of composer and academician Vlastimir Nikolovski as a representative example, showing its application in elementary, secondary and higher music education. The article argues that Macedonian professional music can support listening, analysis, performance, ensemble work and cultural interpretation, while also encouraging students to approach domestic repertoire as a living artistic field rather than as a marginal addition to standard programmes.
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