«No grand piano in the last 50 years»: the music college needs new instruments for teaching students in Mykolaiv

College of Music Piano, October 2024, photo by NikVesti

Director of the Mykolaiv Regional College of Music Anatolii Syrota said that the educational institution needs to update its instruments. Currently, teachers and students use those that were made in Soviet times.

This is stated in the article NikVesti «No grand piano in the last 50 years». How, despite the war, the music college in Mykolaiv teaches art students.»

The director of the college believes that «insufficient attention is paid to the development of musical art» in the region.

«No grand piano has been bought in the last 50 years at least. It is impossible to walk all the time, all your life without shoes, without pants, without clothes. And there is no money — they don't give it. We have all the tools from Soviet times, and during the time of Ukraine's independence, there was no money. They don't give money for tools. The whole musical society is poor. What can we say, if even our philharmonic has no premises, nothing. And that's how we are,» says Anatolii Syrota.

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Therefore, teachers buy new instruments on their own in order to «maintain studies at a normal level,» says Volodymyr Aleksieiev, a musician and head of the Department of Pop Music at the College of Music.

«It would be great if there was support for this,» he added.

College of musical art in Mykolaiv

Even before the full-scale war, the project to repair the college was done three times, but no money was found for the restoration.

In August 2021, the Deputy Head of the Regional State Administration for Culture Yurii Hranaturov promised that in 2022 they would develop a project for the reconstruction of the historical college building. At that time, he said that the work will be carried out in two stages: the repair of the old building and the reconstruction of the historical building. The Regional State Administration was going to look for money for this from the FDRR or «kick out» through the «Great Construction» and «Great Restoration» programs.

In April 2021, Mykolaiv musician Volodymyr Aleksieiev drew attention to the critical condition of the college building. He told how for 17 years the local authorities have been making promises to repair the building, but it continues to collapse. At that time, he said that the reconstruction of the facade of the building requires an amount of about 100,000 dollars.

And the team of the College of Musical Arts showed the conditions under which they are forced to work and train the young talents of the region for decades.

At the end of 2021, the then head of the Mykolaiv Regional Council, Anna Zamazieieva, inspected the Mykolaiv Music College and promised to take the issue under personal control. She wrote about this on December 20, the day before the session at which the regional council approved the regional budget for 2022.

In April 2023, a tender was announced for the repair of two buildings of the Mykolaiv Vocational College of Music. It was planned to spend 2.9 million hryvnias on this.

And at the end of 2023, the repair of the college building on Sobornia, 10 was estimated at 100 million hryvnias. This amount was prescribed in the Program of Economic and Social Development of the Mykolaiv Region for 2024, which was approved by the deputies at the regional council session on December 14.

As of October 2024, the historic building of one of the buildings of the Regional College of Music is gradually disappearing in the center of Mykolaiv.