This concept was created in 2012 in Zaragoza (Spain) and officially launched by Professor Carmen Marcuello and Avri Levitan. It has grown incredibly fast and the concept spreads all around the world. To explain briefly: Musethica is an education program for excellent young musicians. It is a new model of integrating large number concerts into the instrumental education of musicians, especially in places where the classical music is otherwise quite rare (places like hospitals, special education centers, prisons, woman shelters, psychiatric center, refugees and homeless people center etc.) It is a worldwide unique education concept that has a very positive impact on the society as well as it helps tremendously musicians to improve. We can say, it is a revolution in the education of classical music interpretation.

Can you please tell me how exactly did you come up with the idea? While teaching?

I think this idea was originally born in my mind when I was studying for my Master’s in Paris conservatory. You get from the school only two to three concerts a year to perform, so not that many possibilities. I started to think about this concept back then. But it got much clearer while I was teaching in a small chamber music school in Spain. There were great students, a lot of them on scholarships, they had great teachers. Everything was there except the possibilities to perform. What I used to do was to call people from the street, to come listen to my students playing. My students were already pretty good, what they needed was to play for audience on regular basis. Arranging and booking a concert in a classical music work is a tricky thing, especially for a starting young musician. So I thought, why not make it part of the education system, to perform regularly for people who would not normally sit in the audience? Musethica is not an official project of one conservatory, it is simply new approach in teaching young musicians. One could say it is an educational-social model that helps the young musicians and finally it has also a big social impact on disadvantaged people. With Musethica everyone wins, so many people gets unique moments of joy. I need to emphasize this: these are not charity concerts, because we need this audience as much as they need us.

Can you tell me how Musethica works on every day bases: how many concerts do you usually play? How do you pick students which will participate in this program, how do you pick the repertoire?

It works very simply, usually it is about 100 concerts per school year, short concerts of 40 to 60 minutes of the finest repertoire, usually somewhere near the school, with the best young musicians together with leading internationally known musicians. As for the repertoire, we absolutely don’t adapt it, the students play their normal repertoire, even pieces that are complicated to follow and surprisingly this special public listen even more carefully. For example they played yesterday for 8 years old children the entire Mozart g-major quartet, which is usually a program that you hear only in a chamber music theatre. They played Ligeti, and Kurtág at a rehabilitation center. So you see, Musethica performs this kind of program.

The procedure to join the Musethica program is quite strict. The young musicians who participate in the Musethica are carefully chosen by the artistic committee for their musical excellence. All of them improve tremendously in their performance and interpretation skills through these intensive concert experiences as they perform so many times – there is about 10-15 concerts in one Musethica workshop week in close and direct contact with the audience which is a unique experience that no other chamber music or music education program offers. They get also master classes with an internationally well-known musicians and then they perform in the concerts together - among others we cooperate with Gerard Poulet, Stephan Picard, Kuba Jakowicz, Zvi Plesser, Ulf Wallin, Johannes Meissl, Orfeo Mandozzi, Jonathan Brown and Casals quartet, Amihai Grosz, the Jerusalem Quartet, the Quiroga Quartet, the collaboration with ECMA and many many others.

Musethica is a concept, a program of education and it became very big very fast. In general it depends on the country, but there are different kind of activities: we have a chamber music festival, Musethica week (usually with one or two faculty), in Israel a special “quartet in residence” program when the students work together with the Jerusalem quartet. In Spain we have “the mastering performance program” of chamber music in residence, especially for string quartet but also other instruments are welcome. The accepted students get a full scholarship: they get a nice rooms, they get the masterclasses, and then as a part of the course they will perform 10-15 concerts per month. 85% of all concerts take place in social places such as schools for special education, women shelters, psychological clinics, prisons or workshops for people with disabilities. The social impact is enormous! We are getting letters and feedback from doctors, social workers, teachers who are amazed and inspired how the live music experience effects the audiences - mainly people who have never listened to classical music before and who never have the opportunity to visit a concert hall.

What is the rest of 15%, “normal concerts? Can you tell me what difference do you feel in the public and the atmosphere at the traditional concerts open to all public and the ones at social places, so with a disadvantaged public?

Yes, 15% of the Musethica concerts are Open concerts, these are traditional concerts, open to all public. The musicians usually play those concerts after a very intense week of playing at social places. But we don’t like to say “normal” because every concert of Musethica is normal for us, no matter where we play.

The difference is that if the students, or musicians in general, play for some non-musicians, then they are playing from another kind of interest. They don’t have to impress anyone, they don’t have to be afraid, to compare themselves. They play for the sake of playing, and usually during that time they play the most beautifully. Another quality of this way of performing is what affects the musician’s playing: it is the empathy. The intuitive brain is another quality that affects the musicians in the interpretation. Then it is the modesty, because there is no question of fame, nobody knows where you played yesterday, it is completely non-important to this new public. And of course, no financial interest. So it is one hour of pure music making.

It is difficult to generalize: but there is a certain difference regarding the public’s approach: when you go to a concert at Philharmonie de Paris for example, you plan it in advance, you go to dinner before, it is a “date” kind of event. But with the concerts at the social places there is the difference that we have to convince them, they didn’t take time off to go to a concert. It is a different kind of communication between the musician and the public. But otherwise I do really think that all concerts are the same: when you play in prison, for the refugees or at Theatre des Champs-Elysées, because music doesn’t know the difference. We don’t know what is going on in people’s minds during the concerts, we think we have an idea, but it is all virtual. There is no social or cultural context needed. That is also what you learn with Musethica.

But maybe one thing really is different, that this new public listen so carefully. It is also different for the musicians, because the public they are used to from the traditional venues, in general they don’t listen that attentively. Also very few musicians know how to listen, it is difficult to listen. But here, people listen very carefully, to every note that you play. You feel that you have to play so well. They don’t think about their personal staff, they just listen to the music. It is a way of relief for the musician, he can just care about the music. If the music is not well played, not in rhythm, no dynamic, they lose interest. And that is even better for us, there are no excuses! We have to play from our musical imagination. This public doesn’t know anything about classical music. If it is well played and it affects them and they enjoy it? That is what matters.         

So what was an actual musical accomplishment thanks to this program?

All the musicians involved in this program showed unbelievable progress in their playing. Thanks to performing weekly to an honest audience. Playing and performing is giving a gift of music, sharing with others, not just standing scared in a competition-room. Now I actually understand why I play music.

And of course, it is not only the musical accomplishment. We have hundreds of emails as a feedback from the places we go to. When we played at the psychiatric center, the director wrote me that he learned about his patients and his doctors, something beautiful was happening there. Or when we played in a center for people with dementia (where it is quite difficult to play a concert because you have no reaction there), the doctors said that the music helped the patients more than any medications, they were so thankful and inspired. We musicians have a tremendous need to play for people, to perform, we actually can’t teach music without it, so could it be that people also have a need to listen to beautiful classical music, people that normally don’t have an access to it? So why don’t we do it all the time, everywhere?

I was wondering the same thing, because in the end, it is quite a simple idea, it seems so logic: students need to perform to really improve. But your program is unique. Why do you think it is that there are no other programs like this?

Of course, there are already many projects that plays concerts in social places: in Germany there is a project called Live Music Now, and all musicians would tell you that they really like those concert. All of us active musicians sometimes play in a community center, hospital or even at prison. Usually during the Christmas period. But then it is a special concert, playing for people in need, for us at Musethica it is a normal concert. Musethica is not a charity-concert project, but a revolutionary change in the educational system of excellent young musicians with a huge number of concerts in social places.

Why wasn’t this idea par of instrumental education? This is actually a fantastic question. Why there are no other music education programs like this? Honestly I don’t know the answer. At first I thought that I didn’t come up with anything new, because when you ask no matter which teacher they would tell you that students need to play, to perform. So this is not new. They would even tell you that they need to play to a different kinds of public. I think these programs were not that common for so many reasons… We connect classical music with prestige and elite, and students and their parents, which are also a very important factor, want to win competitions, to get into Theatre des Champs-Elysées, to great orchestras, so they go from one teacher to another teacher. They don’t have the objective to become a real artist. It is not even secondary for them. Even the musicians themselves got confused with our concept because they connected classical music to concert halls, not to orphanage house. I also think that even the people from the social places might be afraid of the classical music, find it difficult and complicated to understand, but then again: Musethica isn’t about explaining music, it is just about listening. 

It is very important to say that Musethica is an education program for excellent young musicians - as they don’t have the opportunity to play concerts often and on a regular basis in front of audiences during their education in the music academies. It is not an education program for audiences. The repertoire varies from solo pieces to octet and present the finest classical repertoire (from early music to contemporary) that can be heard in any concert hall worldwide. No changes are made to the music - whether it is played for 2 year old kids or 99 year old patients or Syrian asylum seekers.

You said you don’t start your concerts with some explanations or lecture about the music and composers. Why do you think it is better like this, to start playing without introducing the music and its context at first?

I only introduce the pieces and I say the names of the musicians. It is very important I think, because with less words the music has much more impact. And the music, I can’t repeat it enough: when it is well played, it works absolutely with any public. When it is not well played, then you have to use the clown and explain and chat to catch their interest. After now 550 concerts that we played, we are even more assured than before that if one speaks before the concert, the attention gets away. I think that talking about music puts the fear into the public’s mind, they suddenly think that maybe they do need to know how many fugues Bach wrote, or what is the a-flat-major, and they get insecure. The language of music is so rich. I believe that music works by itself, it doesn’t need any cultural explanation. For example, we recently played Ligeti’s sonata, and of course there is beautiful story behind it, but nobody actually has to know. You don’t force imagination on people, especially on children.

But afterwards you start a dialogue with the public?

Always. Well, but of course if they don’t want to speak with us, we don’t force them. We also play for people that don’t speak. But another thing is that the questions that come from this public are so amazing, so unexpected that even this is a great practice for the young musicians. But these are different kinds of questions, more abstract, it is not about “how did you get from g-major to c-major”, it is not their business, it’s our business.

So you would say that your main intention wasn’t to attract the disadvantageous public towards the classical music, this big social impact came as a secondary plus with your program?

Honestly, no, the main idea was purely musical, very egoistic, to improve the musicians, to make the students perform. The media often say: so you have a project to bring the classical music to social people? No! It is not the target, it is the impact. It had this impact because the musicians don’t come to do it for the charity, for a missionary. They take it as a part of their education and they are really trying to play better each concert. They need as much as we need them. The formula is, that we musicians are the bridge that brings the music to the listener. The listener is the part of the formula of music, music doesn’t finish with the musician.

Did you have a good team to create this program?

Yes, what makes our project so successful, is the co-founder of Musethica, Carmen Marcuello. She is a professor of economics, I told her about the idea and she is the one who put it in place. It is all thanks to her, she simply made it happen. And very quickly a lot of other places wanted to have this program. You know, sometimes you need the right people, ideas are everywhere. But what I have that the others didn’t have is Carmen. She took this idea, she produce this program amazingly, because she has this great social and human approach.

In which countries can we find Musethica’s partners?

It is nice to have this interview, because we just celebrate 550 concerts in the last 3 years. Now we are active in 7 countries: in four countries we have associations already (Spain, Germany, Poland and Israel) collaborating closely with local cultural and social partners and music academies as well as we have collaboration partners in China, in France (in the south of France where we do every year a Musethica week) and we just signed in Sweden this week.

What are the next events that you have planned?

The next Musethica week with social and public concerts takes place next week in Spain, Zaragoza, and then there is the International Musethica Festival in Israel in October, and then a chamber music program in Zaragoza: where the auditions are now open.

How about the finances? What sponsors do you have?

In every country it is different. We have a sponsor Daniel & Nina Carasso foundation, support from the government of Spain, the region and from the city of Zaragoza. It is amazing and the people in Zaragoza are coming to the concerts, they are just coming to listen without any explanations, just how it should be. Professors are honored for the teaching, for the masterclasses, but the concerts are not paid. For the 85% of concerts, there are no money involved! The idea of Musethica is to play music completely voluntary, for free, otherwise as a learning tool it won’t work properly. We remove 2 things from the concert-formula: money and name. You don’t get financial compensation and nobody really cares who you are and where you played yesterday.

http://musethica.org/

Adela Pudlakova