«Finding in life something specific and really interested in this – in itself achievements,» – wrote the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Director of the Musical School named after Sviatoslav Richter, Honored Worker of Culture of Ukraine, Ms. Lyudmila Kochevenko lives on this principle, which is why with their students they have a huge number of achievements. About the Richter Museum, talented students and the city in which they live, Ms. Lyudmila told Zhytomyr.Travel
«I’ve been in Zhytomyr since 1975. Once they arrived with their parents, and since then there. It was in Zhytomyr that I met the most important person in my life – my husband, here I found the most expensive one – my family, I already had two sons. In 1982, I came to a music school, and I was appointed to a post in 1999, and the official order to appoint me as a music school director came on March 31. That is, the days will be exactly 20 years. Here is my favorite work, the man who supports all my ideas and innovations here is all the most important in my life. That’s why Zhytomyr is native to me, and I have long been a rutomiran»
«Mom tells me that I am strong that I can. (Smiling) My parents are people of simple professions, dad – a miner, and in the culture they never worked. But mom still once in a simple mining town said: «I wrote about the family that a daughter will be born, we call her Lyudochka and she will play the piano.» Well, then I went to a music school that was 17 kilometers from the house»
«Once in my childhood I was riding classes, on some buses, with transplants. It was standing somewhere at the stop, and the weather was bad, it was raining, it was already dark. But here comes a car, there’s mom and dad, who are looking for me. Mother asks: «How did you find yourself here?» And I’m so happy: «Mom, I have two» five, two!» (Laughs) Since I was five years old when I was planted for an instrument, I understood that it’s mine that music will never leave, that I will continue this matter»
«At the age of 16 I worked at a school as a teacher, then became a director. The volume of work is enormous, sometimes it seems to me that I do not have time. But the director must necessarily have students, so that for other teachers was an example. And it’s difficult, because you do not know which student came to you to study, and whether there is a talent for a child. When a child is interested, you understand that music is his. This year I graduated from Denis, my student, whom I am very proud of: we won so many contests with him! When he went to class, I realized that a person who understood me without words came in. We have passed those bounds when there is a student, a teacher, a pet – we are the only whole. I was sad when he finished my studies and entered the music school, but I had a new student, a girl of Nastya. Such children are likely to become musicians, but there are others, and they are also incredible. One of my students, Valery, will probably become a doctor, and Sofiika will be a linguist … Amazing girls, I really love them!»
«Administrative work is difficult: you and the owner, and the builder. (Laughs) We have about 70 teachers, and also people who provide economic needs. And we have to manage everything, to know everything. One must realize that everyone wants to come to work quietly, see a smiling head who asks: «How are you doing?». Man should not feel tense, with the desire to go to work at school, to students and calmly return home. The task of the head is to create such conditions. And this is difficult because people are very different, sometimes vulnerable and too emotional, but they are all people of art, all creative personalities»
«When you do different things, different hemispheres of the brain work: one hemisphere works, the rest is resting. You are switching – here you are relaxed»
«One of our instructors, Leshа Rudoj, I know from a five-year age. It’s joyful to see how children grow, learn, become professionals, and then come to work for us»
«Now children are different. The Internet is an infinite space, and children know a lot. Therefore, the teacher needs to rise to the level of the child. You can now click on one button and get answers to all the questions. There is no process of getting the answer – just the result. In music, this does not happen. The child should work, work daily on the chosen tool, spend a lot of time on homework. But our children do not always want this, and everything depends on education. If the parents learned to read the books, the child will continue to develop. When there is at least a small musical instrument at home – the boy learns. So it all depends on our young parents who encourage their children to study. Parents who bring children to a music school to study, rejoice that their children do not sit in a computer, but receive live communication, and even learn. In general, each new generation is different from the previous one»
«For kids four or five years old, we have the Debut group. Today tuition fee is 250 UAH per month, it’s five hours a week, twenty a month, and if you count an hour, there is not much. And thus the children get the first knowledge of the music of the pear, musical instruments»
«We are currently taking part in an artistic project for the implementation of new educational programs. Our school is the only one in Zhytomyr and in the region that has expressed the desire and got the right to take part in the pilot project. We collected two groups of children who have been performing on stage for about four months. We approach the children from the point of view that the child should not reach the level we have established, and we must develop the abilities and skills that a child has, give it as much as possible, learn to show oneself, and contribute to the development of his personality. And when our kids came to the scene, both parents and teachers enjoyed it, and the children were happy and proud, because that was their first victory in life – as artists they performed on stage and applauded them all. Our task is not to get out of school all the musicians, but to reveal capable children and to develop creativity, intellect in them, and in the future to ensure the need for creative self-realization of each pupil. All children must have the opportunity to get a general arts education, and then they themselves will determine where to apply the knowledge gained. The main thing is to give them knowledge, to give a choice, and they will already manage this cargo themselves»
«The school has settled in this room since 1971, it will soon be 50. We did not celebrate the fortieth anniversary, because it was a century of Sviatoslav Richter’s birth, and this event completely eclipsed»
«There is a biography of man, city, and there is a biography of the building. This building was built in 1904, and we saved each brick as it was 100 years ago. Builders, of course, were not easy, but you must realize the value of what was done to you. We need to build new ones, but keep our old ones so that our children can see it, know how they lived before, because it’s a story»
«Once the house in which the school is located, it hired military service, which was headed by the state councilor Mykola Sudzilovsky. At the upbringing in Suzilovsky was a boy, nephew of his wife. I, Ruslan Y. Kondratyuk, who works in the archives and knows well on the history of the city, said: «Imagine the prototype of Bulgakov Lariosik from the White Guard once run in this house … Once a military figure,» white general «Anton Antonov Denikin walked on our stairs . The Arkhangelgorod regiment, in which he served, stood near Zhytomyr, and then the soldiers of the regiment were stationed at a certain time»
«Since 1930, there was a music school here. It was already in the 70s that the school was located on Pushkinska Street, but Vadim Gnedash, Alexander Bilash studied here, and his first improvised concerts Sviatoslav Richter provided for students and teachers in our room. For some time Richter was brought up in Zhytomyr aunt, and at the age of six Svyatoslav moved to his parents in Odessa. About Richter now who does not speak, everyone wants to hold contests on his behalf, even in those cities where he once visited. But I consider it important that the city where the person was born. And here I even supported the musician himself, because in my biography I always remembered Zhytomyr: Stanishevka, the Transfiguration Cathedral, the streets of Berdychiv and Bazarna»
«We opened the museum of Sviatoslav Richter in 2015, and by that time the museum existed as a room for the memory of Sviatoslav Richter. In December last year, the museum received the status of a national. He is the only one in Ukraine, there is no such museum. The idea of the museum belongs to Alla Hrigorivna Ryabtsova, our teacher, she collected documents about the family and the work of Richter for a long time. Before the creation of the museum, we attracted Julia Valentinovna Kaplun and Olga Vasilyevna Rodichev, the researchers of our regional museum of local lore, thanks to which the museum together with them. We are very grateful to the artist Yurii Dubinin for the excellent performance of the exposition – this is his high professionalism. Now we want to open a new exposition, in which we will talk about the history of the city. The idea in the title – «History of the city: the view of the contemporary». One stand was dedicated to Bazarna Street and our building. Interesting not just pictures, but stories, conversations. I look forward to the opportunity to tell the general public that it was earlier in this room in those distant times»
«Thanks to the museum, we became acquainted with a huge number of incredible people. For example, the physicist Yuriy Bokhonov is a person who appreciates Richter’s personality. Usually talking about fans of football, sports, but the fan of a great musician I saw for the first time. Bokhonov teaches at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. He presented us with a unique collection of records of the musician’s works. Another Odessa is Volodymyr Oleksandrovich Smirnov, who once graduated from the School of Carpentry in Odessa – the first musical school of the decade in the USSR»
«Bruno Monsenjohn is a French film director who shot a single film about Sviatoslav Richter» Richter Unhappy. « We got acquainted with him in Kiev, but he really wanted to visit us in Zhytomyr. I arrived at the conference, but spent most of my time in our museum, looking at the photos, the things of the composer»
«I love theaters – Kyiv, Lviv Theater, I really love Odessa. I can not say I do not like the forest, but the theaters – I live, in anticipation of any trip or business trip I know for sure that I will spend the evening in the theater»
«Recently, many listened to violinist Anre Rieu, discovered Vakarchuk, but I still love classical music»
«I love my city, all the streets, squares, squares and park … And I also really like moral on Pokrovsky – the work of Dima Krab. I do not just like it – I bow my head to the talent of this person. When I look, it seems to me that far and wide you enter the universe, the present, the past and the future at the same time. In my associations is the universe»
Translated by Aliona Matushevich
