The plan was as follows: musically gifted children would study at a first-level music school (children for six years, young people for five), and during that time the adjacent building would be prepared for further education. The renovation and adaptation should take no longer than 4–5 years, so the first graduates of the first-level music school would not have to look for opportunities to continue their education at a second-level school outside Bolesławiec.
That was how it was supposed to be, but the plans went awry when the country found itself in an economic crisis. The first graduates did indeed leave the first-level school on schedule, in 1987, but only initial renovation and adaptation work was under way in the building intended for the second-level school. The years passed, graduates left the first-level music school, and the new facility—mainly for lack of funds—still did not exist.
Thus, five years had passed since the planned opening of the second-level music school (and 10 years since the start of the renovation and adaptation “preparations”), while eighty (sic!) graduates searched for opportunities to continue their education literally across the entire country: Wojtek Gołębiowski, for example, ended up in Gdańsk, Przemek Cichorzewski in Kalisz, Dorota Straburzyńska in Poznań, and so on. A considerable part of this gifted—and in several cases exceptionally gifted—group had to give up a further artistic career.
The director of the Music School, mgr Dorota Pińczuk, comments on this fact with great concern and regret: “Those who do not know this problem do not even realize what a loss the city suffers by losing such gifted people. Poland will absorb these future artists: Gdańsk, Poznań, Wrocław. Perhaps the residents of Bolesławiec will start families there and join orchestras. The development of some gifted students is halted halfway, or even a quarter of the way—because not everyone can leave. And yet these people could create musical life here, on the spot, around themselves: form orchestras, choirs and ensembles; enter primary and secondary schools, where music is already only a memory...”
Mgr KAZIMIERZ BISZKO, one of the longest-serving music teachers in our city and the founder of the first music center many years ago, says: “A music school is most often associated with an elite institution educating selected, musically gifted children. That is certainly true of the institution’s basic work, but beyond that it is also a social activity, bringing children, young people and adults closer to music. Now that general-education schools have no music classes, choirs, singing or amateur ensembles—now that musical life in former clubs and workplace cultural centers has died—the concerts and musical events organized by the music school are almost the only way of bringing music to people. The second-level music school, with an auditorium—a 200-seat hall—and all the necessary facilities, was meant to meet these expectations.
Mgr Lidia Jop, a piano teacher, says: “Continuing one’s education at a second-level school outside Bolesławiec is extremely difficult, if only because combining studies at two schools with commuting is challenging. Learning to play an instrument requires daily, several-hour-long, systematic practice, for which there simply must be time. My former students lose this time commuting three times a week to Legnica or Jelenia Góra.
Andrzej Sokołowski, a physician and chairman of the Social Council of the Music School, says: “The effort a child puts into six years of study, as well as the effort of the teachers and the costs borne by the parents, are almost wasted when there is no second-level school. In our case, we do not produce a professional musician—the training process takes about 10 years—and at the same time the opportunity to develop musical culture locally is lost. Therefore, establishing a second-level music school in Bolesławiec is an absolute necessity. What is the solution? Let us give the Director the floor once again: ‘Quite simply, we must launch this school. The building is currently almost ready in its unfinished structural state. Last year, for which I would like to express my heartfelt thanks, the city helped us greatly by allocating 250 million zlotys for renovation work. I ask the councillors and the Board to make a similar gesture this year, and I also appeal to all other sympathetic sponsors. Let us not allow future musicians from Bolesławiec to wander around the country...’