Her Majesty Queen Sofía, Honorary President of the Reina Sofía School of Music, presided over the annual meeting of the highest representative body of this center for advanced professional training at the School and Albéniz Foundation headquarters. The Board of Trustees reviewed the work carried out in the past academic year 2018/2019 and the basic principles on which to develop the Activity Plan for the following year were presented.
The founding president of the School, Paloma O’Shea, thanked Her Majesty Queen Sofía for her presence, and welcomed Isabel Díaz Ayuso, President of the Community of Madrid, and Marta Rivera, Minister of Culture and Sports of said Community; Andrea Gavela, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Sports; and María Ballesteros, General Director of Programs and Cultural Activities of the Madrid City Council.
Paloma O’Shea in her speech announced the incorporation of new patrons of the Reina Sofía School such as Aline Foriel-Destezet who will give her name to the Cello Chair, Juan Carlos Escotet, president of ABANCA, which finances scholarships for Venezuelan students, the Rothschild Foundation as patron of the Entrepreneurship Program, as well as obtaining funding from the European Commission for the School’s project “New skills for new artists” in which Belgian and Irish entities participate under the leadership of the School.
The founding president emphasized that the institution “has continued working on the transfer of academic responsibility. The new dean, Óscar Colomina, comes from directing the Menuhin School in England and his predecessor Fabián Panisello will direct the Composition Chair for the first time next year. This new chair will be implemented shortly after the inauguration of the IF International Foundation Trumpet Chair, which shows the School’s willingness to gradually increase its academic offer.”
“We have created an advisory council made up of experts in music education, the ASIMUT academic management platform has been implemented, a new website has been developed together with its new ‘School Channel’ to digitally disseminate our concerts and classes, we have established an alliance with the Stingray audiovisual platform and with Deloitte and Telefónica we have participated in the ‘Music and Technology’ project.
Great digital initiatives to help in the management, studies and projection of students, which are added to the important visits that have been experienced and/or are still to come in this course: “Our students have been able to enjoy attending a meeting with Gustavo Dudamel, a master class by tenor Javier Camarena, rehearsals with conductor Orozco-Estrada and we are missing the visit of maestro Iván Fischer. In addition, the AIE Master Lessons program is full of important names such as Francisco Araiza in singing, Silvia Marcovici on violin, Matthew McDonald on double bass, Stanislav Ioudenitch on piano, and many others”.
“We will have the presence of the great British composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle at the 20th anniversary of the Santander Music and Academy Encounter next July, and our Principal Conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada will take the School’s Symphony Orchestra on tour in 2021 to Bratislava, Budapest and Vienna”.
After the speech of the Founding President, it was the turn of the General Director of the Reina Sofía School, Julia Sánchez, who explained the strategic plan of the institution whose great novelty is that it will offer education under a free tuition system from the next academic year.
