Holy Trinity Church Hall, London NW3

Agnes Kory, the founder and driving force of the Bela Bartok Centre for Musicianship gave us the pleasure of participating at the workshop, the second one in this academic year.

As the workshop was on Saturday, many parents like myself devoted 8 hours of their family time (including the children's classes and the journey). So what is so special at these events? For some children, like my two boys, it was the first time that they were part of a musical event. The children and students perform together in their Centre's outfit (BBCM T-shirts and sweatshirts) and they are with their parents in the audience for the other performances on these afternoons.

Agnes does not expect a perfect performance from the participants on these events - her motivation is to encourage us, all of us, children and their parents to make music together and to enjoy it. And I would like to add that it opens the children's views to become more confident about what music is.

The family's part in performances on these afternoons is always very colourful as we are coming from so many different musical traditions and backgrounds. This time I remember a Chinese folk tune performed beautifully by Clotilde, Thibaut, their parents and baby brother. This was followed by a Cornish folk tune "Sweet Nightingale" sung very well by Minerva, Otto and their parents in a round and, very important, all of us joined in. Joey's family trio with the song "I can see a rainbow" was beautifully performed. The delightful Jamaican duos sung by Akira and mother Catherine was followed by a Hungarian folk song, perhaps part of the folk song collection of Bela Bartok or Zoltan Kodaly, sung by Becky and mother Elisabeth supported by another BBCM parent Judith and adult student Maggie.

I do not want to forget a request by Agnes for this workshop. It was a song in Hebrew performed by the Lazarus family, sung in beautiful a cappella harmonies. Hanna Szenes, who came back parachuting to Hungary after having managed to escape the Nazi terror before, wrote the text.

Over the years we saw some changes in the organisation of the workshop. We have found a new place, and I think it is very convenient for all of us. And Agnes cut the running time of the workshop, a difficult thing to do but very beneficial for parents who have little children. The contributions of food for the party afterwards is left to us and I would like to suggest that it should be strictly vegetarian for the future events.

Finally I would like to mention how touched Agnes was when she received a bunch of beautiful flowers from her teenage class. I hope they will continue to be part of this lovely family event, the family of the Bela Bartok Centre for Musicianship.

Postscript:

Once I mentioned to Agnes that a former student received a distinction in her music exams, which she should be very proud of, because I think it shows how valuable her method of teaching is. But Agnes was very reluctant - " it is not the piece of paper you receive after the exams which makes you understand music". I was surprised but it occurred to me that this event is a different form of doing your exams. Much more relaxed, no board in front of you where you have to answer questions or to perform; just BBCM students, their families and Agnes.

On another occasion I was concerned that my children don't want to learn to play an instrument. And I had to agree with Agnes's reply: "Neither I nor, more importantly, Kodaly believed that instrumental playing equates with music education. It is a nice extra if someone fancies it, but it is not at all essential. For instance some of my teenage class (in their 14th year with me) don't play any instrument but they read musical scores and they understand, appreciate and love music." Kodaly said that 'if two 14 years olds can sight-sing a two-part Bach invention, they have achieved more than if they would have banged the piano from morning till night'.

Albert Misak
Father of Natan (4th year class) and Rafael (BBCM kindergarden)