Each year the entire school community of St. Stanislav’s Institution celebrates St. Stanislav’s Day to mark the feast of the Institution’s patron. It took place on 11th November 2021, and its aim above all to celebrate the many talents and success of the pupils of Alojzij Šuštar Primary School and the students of Diocesan Classical Gymnasium and The Music School of St. Stanislav’s Institution. The event offered a flashback of the academic year that was mostly spent online due to the pandemic. This year’s festivities were held under the title of The Focus of Harmony, which adequately points at the 25th anniversary of the establishment of The Music School of St. Stanislav’s Institution, which is observed this academic year. That is why all the headmasters, past and present, of the Music School were at the event. The mass and the celebration were followed on line, special guests were able to join in person. This year’s event was in hands of Marta Močnik Pirc and Barbara Tišler of The Music School. The programme was a happy feast of music, words, dancing and visual arts intertwining four elements of matter, namely Fire, Water, Earth, and Air.
Never stop listening with your heart
Holy mass was celebrated in the school chapel by the Archbishop of Ljubljana Msgr. Stanislav Zore, along with the current and former director, and school chaplains. The Archbishop spoke of the fact that feeling grateful is unmistakably a sign of being loved. It is in the human nature to be reluctantly grateful for hardships, however, only this actively shapes our lives. He reflected also on this year Institution’s motto: Do we read each other? He pointed out that we live in the era of images, most of the events unfold before our very eyes, but we do not sense people through eyes, but through ears. He stressed:“Never stop listening with your heart, sift what you hear. In desire to search for solutions, we could lose Christ from our sight, which never enables meeting with Him.”
“It is the sound that stimulates human development, not brains.”
With these words Florjan Ivanc, M.A., a Slovene composer and professor at the Academy of Music (University of Ljubljana), reflected upon the important facts that combine music and human development into a harmonious focus. “The cochlea, this tiny instrument in human ears, is the first organ to be fully developed in the human body.” In this sense the cochlea, not the brains, defines various aspects of student formation, upon which prof. Ivanc speculated that it is not a coincidence that The Diocesan Classical Gymnasium is attended by excellent students and singers, who decidedly underpin the mission of St. Stanislav’s Institution. He continued that, historically speaking, there are three types of music, namely the music of the universe, the music of man and thirdly the instrumental music. The first two cannot be heard, and it is only the sound of instrumental music that makes them hearable.
On the occasion of its silver jubilee the Music School of St. Stanislav’s Institution recognised high achievers in the field of music. These are the students who have been fostering harmony for the last 25 years playing different musical instruments, namely the piano, violin, viola, flute, recorder, accordion, horn, trumpet, guitar, organ, zither, voice and jazz singing.
At the very end of the solemn celebration the guests in the hall and online were encouraged to detect in themselves the disharmonies of all kinds and turn them into balanced concord, as only those who live in harmony with themselves, can create harmony in others. Definitely a yearlong, if not lifelong, homework to be done thoroughly. Why? In order to be able to read each other. /Lily Schweiger Kotar/
Listen to the mass: https://tiny.cc/masa2021
Listen to the solemn celebration: https://tiny.cc/akademija2021