Those who will be facing the music

Music enthusiasts must clearly remember the Nationalist Party’s promise that upon re-election €15 million out of the Structural Funds would be allocated to the Culture Ministry to transform Ta’ Bighi into a school of excellence in music teaching.

Two years down the line, this vision of excellence is gone with the wind. Riccardo Muti established his academy elsewhere. What’s more, to add a big dose of insult to injury, despite all the cheap talk of Vision 2015+, the creative economy and what have you, the Johann Strauss School of Music has “temporarily” closed down. A case of moving backwards, not forward!

And why has it closed down? Not because there is a lack of demand from students to learn music. Rather, the amount of students learning an instrument at Johann Strauss tallies the figure of 700. It has closed down because the government did not find the necessary funds to keep the place in a decent physical state.

We are not talking of spending millions of euros from the Structural Funds. We are simply talking of giving the School of Music enough funds to maintain the building in Old Bakery Street, Valletta in proper order. In fact, if one had to exclude the music teachers’ wage bill, over the past four years the government allotted the School of Music the measly sum of roughly €12,000 a year, which is almost the equivalent of the amount of money the government had spent in vain in preparatory studies on the Riccardo Muti Academy project.

Putting it differently, the commission which the now famous, or infamous, BWSC local agent obtained from the deal on the power station extension in Delimara would have, using the same standards, serviced the School of Music for a full 333 years!

It’s all a question of putting the money in areas which can quench the incredible desire and potential of our children and youths to succeed, to create, to be different and inventive. It’s all a question of priorities. What comes first.

And it is also a question of credibility. For instance, when, about two months ago, I first heard about the plans of closing down the Johann Strauss School of Music, which was originally opened during the 1970s with the help of the Austrian government (hence the name), I immediately tabled a parliamentary question asking point blank whether there were any plans to relocate the School of Music.

The answer was that the government had no intention to relocate the School of Music. Rather, the government was intent to develop further the school upon consultation with all interested parties.

Fast forward eight weeks and Education Minister Dolores Cristina does exactly the opposite. The government announced the dispersal of the School of Music into various units – which we later got to know from the Lifelong Learning director that they will still be within the Valletta area after being led to believe they will be scattered around Malta – until the school undergoes urgent and necessary maintenance.

The opposition firmly believes in the need of democratising the teaching of music and will unreservedly support the concept of community teaching of the arts. However, what the government is doing right now is giving community teaching a bad name and distorting the essential concepts. It is completely wrong and they should be ashamed of themselves for treating this important subject so carelessly and, worse than that, using it as an excuse for its failures.

There is only one conclusion to be drawn in this whole School of Music saga: never in the history of art teaching have so few talked so long to so many and said so little.

Unfortunately, it will be the teachers and the students, and not the government representatives, who will be facing the music and the consequences of maladministration.

Dr Bonnici, a lawyer, is the opposition’s spokesman on youth and culture.