Skopje1

I am very pleased to be here today in Skopje to attend this Conference at the School of Music since this Institution has a long standing relationship with the Tempus Programme which I represent. Back in 1998, one of my predecessors, a Frenchman called Michel Lefranc, whom some of you may remember, and who was in his free time, an amateur poet, was particularly happy to attend a concert organised and carried out by the students of this Faculty, together with Aspasija and Deirdre Lennan from the ETF, who unfortunately could not come today. I think that was the first contact the Tempus world had with the School of Music. This is not because Tempus people are poets or musicians but mainly because the School has demonstrated their capacity to make the most of what the Tempus programme offers. This is probably one of the very few Faculties in Tempus which usefully spends every single Euro the Tempus programme grants.

The first project, JEP-13567, managed in one year's time to successfully introduce new syllabi for Electronic Music and Audio recording courses at the School of Music, a new programme for sonology was introduced in the fall semester of 2000, equipment was purchased, an electronic music studio established, and text book, manual and glossary prepared , all fundamental aspects for the training of composers, the training of professionals in the audio recording area of the broadcasting media and the development of Macedonia's cultural heritage through the recording and archiving of Macedonian music.

The second project, JEP-15019, is now in its third and final year. Once again, results are impressive. The Institute for Research and Archiving of Music (IRAM) was formally established in the first year of the project and is already considered a major actor in the Macedonian cultural environment. It has also acquired a high international reputation. Young professionals have been involved in activities, IRAM is the main consulting institution in Macedonia for sound archiving, it developed very successful cooperation with the Macedonian Academy of Science and Arts, Council for Broadcasting, the University Library etc. IRAM was co-organiser , together with the Commission for music at the Ministry of Culture of Republic of Macedonia, of two very important meetings of the managers of all music institutions. The project is digitising sound cultural heritage, a large multimedia database is being developed, concerts recorded, the internet students radio established, conferences, books, video documentaries, a third electronic studio and more.

It was with great pleasure that the European Commission was able to grant funds to another Faculty initiative (JEP-17088) which is to develop undergraduate and graduate programmes for multimedia and to restructure the existing sonology programme with courses related to journalism, digital recording, editing and storing of audio and video materials, the creation of a student radio, TV programmes and a multimedia site on the Internet. The new curriculum has already been prepared and presented to the Faculty Council for approval and then it will be sent to the University Council and Ministry of Education for student enrolment in March 2004.

To come back to what I said earlier, these projects are a demonstration of how initiatives such as this go way beyond the subject area and seek to develop the Faculty's capacity to transfer its knowledge, expertise and skills to the wider environment, in this case Macedonian heritage and professional bodies working in the field of Culture, Arts and Media. This is something we have encouraged when talking to other projects in similar subject areas. So much can be done with Tempus when projects develop and institutional strategy and focus on sustainable results.

These projects are well designed, to the point, cost-efficient and I must say from our point of view a pleasure to manage. I encourage the team to continue their work and I hope that this project turns out as successful as its predecessors.

Thank you