Stefanija Leshkova-Zelenkovska
 

Pilot research: music life in Skopje in October, 2003

 
        The main objective of our pilot research was the formation of a database for all the music events in Skopje and Macedonia during the October-December period of 2003. Such research, the results of which will yield complete insight into all the current music events, has not been conducted in our country and abroad.
This pilot research functions as a part of the project that is to be carried out in 2004 in the Institute for Research and Archiving of Music (IRAM). The project involves the formation of a dabatase which contains information about all the music events in Skopje in 2004. This database will serve as a source for further analysis concerning the factors which influence the formation and development of our music culture. In fact, the goal of this pilot research was to examine the methods and means to be used during the research of the music life in Skopje, 2004. This research covered only concert events of all music genres.
        We began our pilot research in October, since at that time, after the long summer break, the concert season begins full steam ahead. October is also the only month when the country notes three international festivals of different genres: Interfest in Bitola, Makfest in Shtip and the Skopje Jazz Festival. Our primary purpose was to include the entire country in this research. However, owing to the facts that Skopje is the most populated city, where music events largely influence the forming image of our music culture, i.e. Skopje is the center of Macedonia’s cultural and music life (with the exception of several festivals). All the national music production houses, the most influential organizers and agencies of concerts, as well as almost all the music institutions financed by the national budget are in Skopje. Therefore, we decided to limit our research on the music life in this city only.
        After deciding to survey music life in Skopje alone, we began to create a database. We determined 14 fields corresponding with the parameters of research: 1) genre, 2) structure, 3) type, 4) date, 5) place (i.e. where the concert takes place), 6) organizer, 7) whether it is a regular(usual) concert or it is a part of another public event, 8) program, 9) performer, 10) press covering and style, 11) excerpts from reviews/interviews, 12) financial support, i.e. sponsors, 13) attendance, 14) price of concert tickets.
        This shows that nominal variables are present in most of the fields, even though interval and rational variables are also present. In order to achieve better statistic processing, we tried to separate the data in as many as possible fields, which would later form one field. Thus, it is possible to have insight into the components of that data.
After setting the structure of the database, we continued to collect the data. Thus, for example, we collected the data for October over a period of two months, to be more precise, from September 15th to November 15th. This secured a detailed and exact completion of the base. We gathered the data mostly through the organizers of the music events, who gave us the programs of their institutions. Because we also wanted to follow the covering of events in the newspapers Utrinski Vesnik, Vest and Dnevnik, we collected part of the data from their issues and websites.
        This data was further organized in the Microsoft Excel program. We decided to use this program because it is most widely used and it enables facile conversion and reading of the frequent distributions. This proved to be useful, since the first reading already displayed the significant results.
We shall further present part of the results of the analysis of the pilot research:
 
        Genre distribution
 

Genre
  

Number of realized music events
in October, 2003

 
serious (classical) music
15
modern ballet
 2 
folk(ethno) music
 1 
pop-rock music,
 1 
jazz
 5 
children’s music
 1 
more genres
 1 
 total 
 26 
 
        Within this field, the performances of classical music predominate, which is expected, since in this genre the concert medium prevails.
 
        Structure
 

Structure of concerts

 		  

Number of realized concerts
Solo/classical music
4
Duo/classical music
4
Symphonic concerts
3
Opera performances
2
Gala opera concerts
1
Ballet performances / classical
1
Ballet performances / modern
2
Pop-rock concerts
1
Traditional song and dance concert
1
Jazz concerts
5
Performances of children-singers
1
Performances of more genres
1
 
 


 
        This distribution shows a relative regularity in the number of realized performances, partly as a result of the small population.
 
        Date
 
        We had particular interest in the date of performance, mainly because of the concentration of events during some months or days of the month. Judging from previous experience, the concert scene during one month might be filled with events, which on the other hand is followed by days empty of performances; or, one day might include two or more important concerts, as the surveyed population in our pilot research proved.
 
 
 
         Place
 
        This field included the already famous music halls where concerts take place; the following results were evident:
 

Place
  

Number of concerts

 
Universal Hall
7
Box Scene - Universal scene
1
Macedonian National Theater
6
Army Hall
4
City of Skopje Museum
3
Salon 19 19/ Culture and Art Center
3
Faculty of Music Hall
1
Skopje Fair Hall
1

 

 
 

        This graph makes possible other analyses and comments, for the concert halls have different capacities, and there is no adequate locality for the classical music concerts.
 

        Organizers

        The achieved results showed that the organizers of music events are budget institutions (or institutions financed by the national budget), private manager houses, diplomatic offices and other foreign organizations. Expectedly, budget institutions predominate.
 
 

Organizers of music events

 		  

Number of concerts
institutions financed by the national budget
21 
private managing agencies
3
embassies, cultural centers
2
total
26

 

 
 
        We shall further present the distribution of events according to institutions financed by the national budget:
 

Institutions financed by the national budget

 		  

Number of concerts
Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra
3
Macedonian National Opera
3
Macedonian National Ballet
2
Culture and Art Center
4
Office for Culture and Art 
1
SOKOM
1
Universal Hall
1
CCC “Karposh”
1
Skopje Jazz Festival
5

 

   

 
        Program
 
        Naturally, we were particularly interested in the structure of the performed programs. Therefore, apart from structure of genre, we also included stylistic divisions within our classification. The following categories are incorporated: baroque, romanticism, impressionism, contemporary music, folk, pop-rock, jazz, children’s music. The following are results achieved from these categories, combined with the category of domestic and foreign composers.
 

Performed programs

 
 

Domestic composers

 
 

Foreign composers
baroque
/
2
romanticism
/
10 
impressionism
/
3
contemporary music
3
2
folk
/
3
pop-rock
/
2
jazz
/
15
children’s music
5
/
 

Obviously, this is only a rough grouping of data in order to gain more knowledge which would be helpful in the definite establishment of the categories used in this field in the future.

        Performers
 
        We classified this field according to two categories: domestic and foreign performers. We didn’t classify the achieved results according to the genre. However, the field of classical music was presented separately, including the distributions according to types of performers.
        Classical music involves the following:
 

Artists

 		  

Domestic
  

Foreign
conductor
3
3
solo performer
11
4
orchestra
2
/
vocal solo performer
15 
3
choir
1
/

 
 
        Expectedly, this table included a larger number of vocal solo performers, owing to their performances in operas.
        The performers of other music genres are shown in table no.8:
 
Performance
Domestic
Foreign
pop - rock groups
/
1
jazz ensembles
/
10
folk music ensembles
/
1
children- singers
5
/
modern dance ensembles
1
1

 
 
 
 
  Presentation in the press: Utrinski Vesnik, Vest and Dnevnik
 
        As we already mentioned, apart from classifying information in terms of the covering of the events in these newspapers, we also classified the articles according to their style, i.e. we derived four categories: information, review, interview, and photo-news.
 

Genre

 
 

Information
 

Review
 

Interview
 

Photo-news
Classical music
45
2
1
3
Folk(ethno)
1
/
/
1
Pop-rock 
3
3 
3 
3
Jazz
15
15
10
10
Children’s music
1
/
/
/
Ballet
1
/
/
/
Modern ballet
3
2
1
3
more genres
2
/
/
/

 
 
        Even though this table does not impart the information of the published texts, we noticed that the information presented to the public in the different newspapers is almost identical. This occurs as a result of the identical material offered to the press.
        In this text we presented merely a portion of the results of the pilot research, although generally they already present interesting material suitable for further musicological analyses. This pilot research has already indicated some significant facts about the structure of music life in Macedonia, the presence of domestic versus foreign composers and performers, program policy, etc. However, the examination of the methods and means to be used in the future database of concerts in Skopje, 2004, was the most important part of this project. The methods and means have proved successful.