with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Commission
Closing event - En Chordais, Thessaloniki (GR)
Final event of project MORE
May 27th to 29th, 2011
The final action of the MORE project took place in Thessaloniki with a series of events that included a seminar, a symposium and a play held over the weekend. The MORE project website has been enriched with the proceedings and other significant material taken from the final event.
SEMINAR “Traditional music as a tool for intercultural education”
The speakers were educators from En Chordais, Cité de la musique and the Sibelius Academy. Three courses were addressed to music teachers in primary and secondary education, music students and educators in general. The overall idea of the seminar was to identify, and put to best use going forward, the benefits of the MORE project.
The first course, entitled “Exploring a sea of music” was about the common musical heritage of the Mediterranean areas. The goal was to show the interactions of leading cultures in a multicultural music environment and to promote diversity and peaceful coexistence between different people.
The second subject, entitled “Intercultural education in the workshops of the Cité de la musique”, explored the importance of providing children with a wide range of traditional musics and cultures from an early age, helping them understand the differences and similarities, and thus becoming more friendly and receptive.
The third and last course, entitled “Improvisation and the boundless Kantele” discussed the position of the Kantele instrument, which was a part of traditional music, and is still played today. The discussion then turned to the challenge of combining a knowledge of traditional music, musical instruments, playing techniques, tuning systems and music as a means to personal enrichment and its potential in education.
SYMPOSIUM “Educational aspects of orality in traditional music and intercultural education”
The symposium took place in the Thessaloniki Concert Hall with a series of presentations by distinguished scientists, major educators and cultural institutions from Greece and other European countries: Cité de la musique (France); Association for Culture and Tradition "Anton Pann" (Romania); Istanbul Technical University (Turkey); World Music and Dance Centre (Netherlands); Université de Provence (France); Babel Med Music (France); The Sage Gateshead (Great Britain); Sibelius Academy (Finland); Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Ionian University, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Regional Directorate-General for Primary and Secondary Education of Central Macedonia, Hellenic Observatory for Intercultural Education, and the En Chordais cultural organization (Greece). Also, the choir of the 6th Intercultural Elementary School of Eleutherio-Kordelio of Thessaloniki attended under the baton of the music teacher Evaggelia Kalaitzi.
PERFORMANCE “The Fairytale of Music”
The play “The Fairytale of Music” was written by Vasiliki Nevrokopli and composed by Kyriakos Kalaitzidis, and was staged with the participation of the music ensemble En Chordais, the children’s choir of the Traditional and Byzantine Music School En Chordais, led by the music teacher Katerina Lazaridou and the children’s theatre group under the guidance of the kindergarten Evi Kompiadou. The play was an educational multimedia performance containing storytelling, live music, theatrical performance and images projection, and the message was to promote the demand for a peaceful coexistence and co-authorship between the people of the Mediterranean.
