Testimonials
Getuigenis van Gwendolyn De Smet, studente (2004):
Home Institution: Hogeschool Gent Conservatorium
Destination of exchange: Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest
Field of study: violin classical
Already since I was very young I had the wish to study the violin in Hungary. I heard some extraordinary Hungarian (classical) violin players, but also the gipsy-atmosphere had something very mystic for me, if you speak about the violin. When I started my violin studies in Gent I was happy with my teacher but after a while you want new things and I in my second year I decided to give it a chance and started the progress to go abroad. Hungary was more without realising still my first option, but if it wouldn’t have worked out I would have tried an other as well. I needed somehow to be away from my old town.
I had a lot of expectations but actually all of them have been fulfilled. I knew that the school (Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music) was brilliant but when I came there I never expected so much, because I couldn’t have realised this before; I didn’t know how other schools are working. In Hungary the level is very high and like this they expect a lot from the students. In a strict but not to hard way they worked with me on the things I would like to learn.
Apart from the violin, at the beginning, I was very lonely. I didn’t know anyone and had almost no vocabulary of the Hungarian language. Like this I became very independent and even maybe egocentric, because you don’t have to care about anything around. But my curiosity stayed and after some weeks I started to read about the country and culture and I tried to communicate with the Hungarians. They keep their distance towards strangers or people who don’t speak Hungarian because they don’t speak any other language themselves. After a while I started Hungarian lessons (in the Music academy itself) and there I met also foreign people, which was fun of course.
If I can advise anything to students, then only that they HAVE to go abroad, anywhere you wish, you have to try, even if you don’t care too much or you don’t know. Because before you can not feel like you feel after and it is something you will keep your whole life.
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Getuigenis van Clara Van den Bremt, studente (2008-2009):
Home Institution: Hogeschool Gent Conservatorium
Destination of exchange: Academy of Performing Arts Bratislava
Field of study: piano classical
Voor een jaar ben ik met het Erasmusprogramma gaan studeren in de Slowaakse hoofdstad Bratislava. Ik wou eens een ander stukje van de wereld zien, een andere cultuur leren kennen en eens ervaring opdoen in een ander conservatorium om nieuwe perspectieven te ontdekken.
Centraal Europa heeft me altijd wel al aangetrokken, en bovendien wou ik niet de platgetreden paadjes volgen en zoals zo velen naar de voor de hand liggende ‘Erasmus-landen’ trekken. Nu wou ik ook niet zomaar ergens naar toe gaan zonder iets te weten over de school e.d.. Aangezien ik reeds kennis gemaakt had met enkele Slowaakse ersamus-studenten in ons eigen conservatorium, was ik een beetje op de hoogte van het land en het conservatorium ginder, en dat sprak me wel aan, dus daarom koos ik voor Bratislava.
Op voorhand had ik al contact genomen met de Erasmus coördinator in Bratislava, en zij heeft alles goed op tijd geregeld zodat ik me geen zorgen moest maken over zaken zoals een kot.
Naar ginder gaan was best wel spannend. Ook om de weg te vinden, ik merkte al van de eerste avond dat veel mensen geen (of niet veel) Duits of Engels spreken, maar iedereen was wel zeer hulpvaardig, zodat ik zonder probleem aan mijn kot geraakt ben.
(Na die eerste avond heb ik me wel direct ingeschreven voor de cursus Slowaaks die de Hogeschool ginder aanbood, om toch de basis onder de knie te krijgen en zo mijn plan te kunnen trekken.)
Bratislava zelf bleek een redelijk kleine stad te zijn (het historisch centrum toch), maar heel mooi en gezellig. Bovendien lag het op slechts 45 minuten van Wenen of 2, 5 uur trein van Budapest als je eens nood had aan een grotere stad. Het voordeel van een kleinere stad is ook dat je in een recordtijd nieuwe vrienden maakt onder de buitenlanders, want iedereen kent er iedereen.
In het conservatorium waren we niet met heel veel buitenlanders, maar we werden er heel goed opgevangen. Er werd zelfs gezorgd dat we voor sommige vakken in kleinere groepen les konden volgen in het Engels. Andere lessen waren in het Duits of zelfs Frans.
Enkele docenten zijn daar nu ook volop actief om hedendaagse muziek aan bod te laten komen in het onderwijs en optredens. Dit is naar hun zeggen pas redelijk recent, maar komt nu toch duidelijk naar voor in het lessenpakket, festivals en projecten in de stad.
De lessen voor instrument (piano in mijn geval) waren intensief en aanvullend op de lessen die ik in Gent heb gehad. Het is altijd wel verrijkend om de zaken eens vanuit een andere invalshoek te bekijken. Ook ben ik bezig geweest met voor mij nieuwe aspecten binnen muziek, zoals compositie en clavecimbel.
Gedurende dit jaar heb ik veel bijgeleerd en zelfs een andere kijk op muziek gekregen. Ook heb ik zoveel leuke en interessante mensen leren kennen.
Ik kan iedereen alleen maar aanraden om ook eens van deze mogelijkheid te profiteren om in het buitenland te studeren…
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Docentengetuigenis van Daan Vandewalle, docent (2009):
Home Institution: Hogeschool Gent Conservatorium
Destination of exchange: Institutio P. Mascagni Livorno
Field of study: piano classical
Visiting another institution of higher musical education than the one where one works him or herself, is always a challenge. The foreign school is usually totally unknown,one doesn’t know it’s history ,one has to start working with students that one doesn’t know, without knowledge about their personal histories, development ,motivation nor their goal in life.
The problem is therefore manifold: one may be confronted with a level that one thinks of as ‘’too low’’,in which case anything one says may be misinterpreted quite easily. On the other hand one may be confronted very interesting students,in which case the job is even more difficult since as a guest teacher one doesn’t want to spoil a certain educational trajectory by saying things that are not relevant .
Prudence is therefore an important guide when one enters these situations.
However, none of the above pitfalls seemed to apply to my visit at the institute early april. Although the first student that was presented to me clearly was someone who still has to work a lot and start thinking whether a career in music is really something he wants to go for, this first rather negative impression was then much to my delight completely overthrown. In short, the series of students of Daniele Rivera’s piano class that were presenting themselves to me was beyond my expectations. Several things were striking to me: the professional level of their musical skills, their general openness to critique and willingness to learn from whatever perspective I tried to offer them, and maybe above all the fact that they were all very different. It seemed that they all had had the opportunity during their years of training to develop themselves in the repertoire and with the music that is closest to them,in contrast with many piano schools in which students are forced to adopt one method, and follow one model.
The student’s repertoire was a display of very many different things: a jeune prodige played Rachmaninof, while another student was capable of embracing extremely difficult modernist pieces such as the Bartok cycle Im Freien or the recent virtuoso Ligeti studies. This embracing of both the tradition and intellectual openness and curiosity towards the new is what I retain of what I have seen and above all heard. I can therefore do nothing else than praise the general level mr Rivera’s class, a class that clearly prepares the students for fruitful and interesting musical careers. Later in life the students will start to realize how lucky they have been to having had the chance to mature their musical skills under such guidance and overall love of music.
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Getuigenis van Johanna Pitkänen, studente (2009):Home Institution: Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki
Destination of exchange: Hogeschool Gent Conservatorium
Field of study: piano jazz/pop
Choosing the place of exchange studies and arrangement of practical things
I was generally interested in living and studying abroad, the reason I applied to Gent was that I'd meet some other Finnish people who had studied music there. Also the city by itself seemed nice. I also applied to other places, but in the end I'm happy that I did my exhange studies in Gent. I did not know a lot about Gent before starting my studies there. Of course there were quite a lot of papers that needed to be filled already here in Finland. Also after arriving in Gent I visited several times the school offices before I had all the necessary documents for my studies. Luckily this was not a big problem and I could do all the things I needed even without the official papers. Since I was in Belgium only for a short time, at some point it was a bit frustrating to be going from one office to another. But the people I met in those offices were always nice and all is well when end is well, as they say…
Accommodation
I was lucky with arranging a place to stay in Gent since I shared a contract for a single room together with another Finnish exhange student. He stayed in Gent during autumn and I was there in spring. Practically I didn't need to look for a place to stay by myself. The room I had was very nice, it was rented from a Belgian couple. I didn't have any difficulties with accommodation during my whole stay, unlike many other Erasmus students whom I met in Gent.
Studying
In the beginning of my studies in Gent I received a lot of information about the school, about student services and so on. I found especially useful the booklets and brochures which the city of Gent provides for foreign students. I think these kind of things are well developed there. During my studies I was mainly involved with teachers and other students from the Light Music department and the Classical Music department. Even though I didn't know the teachers or any of the students beforehand, I found it quite easy to start playing music together and to get to know people. Since I had already completed most of my studies in Finland, I didn't have a big choice of courses that I could choose from in Gent. I concentrated mostly on my piano studies. I also took part in a few combos at the school. I found that the teachers were very skillful musicians and had quite different interests in music. That was a good thing, and allowed also me to get different kind of influences.
Sometimes I found myself just wondering whether all the students where familiar with the kind of music we were playing in the combos or about the goal of the combo. I have to say it was a bit unclear to me as well at times. Sometimes I felt a lack of communication between the students while playing music together. This is something I experienced more in Belgium than in Finland. I don't have a good explanation for that, it's just my observation. Maybe that's one of the reasons I feel that I learned the most from these different teachers, including especially my piano teacher, not so much from playing together with other students. I'm happy still that I got to know more students from these combos, and one "system" which I liked a lot at the Light Music department was that piano players were working a lot together with singers. This is one of the ideas I think that could be developed more also in my school here in Helsinki.
I spend quite a lot of time at the school, mostly practising on my instrument, but also sometimes using the computer and so on. It was usually easy to find a place for practising, especially it was good to have so many rooms available at daytime, not only in the evening. I got help from teachers and other students in finding music material, I also used the city library a lot. I found that there was a really nice music department. I think that sometimes it would've been nice to speak some more with a teacher or somebody from the school. I found that most people were very busy, which is of course understandable. Still for somebody like me coming from abroad, I would've appreciated the possibility to just speak with someone, even if I didn't have a specific problem or other reason. Maybe this is a luxury which is hard to find these days anywhere…Actually before I came back to Finland, I especially arranged a few meetings with my teachers. Those were very interesting and gave me the possibility to speak also about topics besides music.
I also took part in a Dutch language course for Erasmus students. This was a nice experience, and a good way to meet other Erasmus students. My Finnish friend, who also studied in Gent, recommended this language course, and I'm happy that I decided to take the course even though it was not in my plans before moving to Gent. I think I would've managed also without studying Dutch, but this course anyway added something quite unique to the whole experience. I think we had an excellent teacher, and the atmospehere was always very good. This is something that I generally remember about all my studies in Gent, the positive attitude I got from other people. I hope I was also able to respond in the same way…
Free time
In the beginning of my stay it was a bit difficult to get to know everything that's happening in Gent, especially because there's so many things going on all the time! But once I got to know some people, I began to participate in the different activities of the city, especially concerts. I got a lot of help also from other Finnish people living in Gent, I discovered there a whole community of Finnish and other Scandinavian people. Generally I was interested to meet very different kinds of people, and in the end this definitely was the case. I also decided to be active by myself in getting to know a bit better other students from the school. One thing that I especially enjoyed were the numerous jam sessions, where besides playing music I got to meet a lot of students and other people who enjoyed the atmosphere of having live music. I was generally amazed by the amount of students in Gent. That's definitely one of the reasons for the very lifeful atmosphere that Gent has.
Besides going to concerts, jams etc. I was doing some sports (not organised by the school though) and enjoyed visiting the different historical places and buildings in the city. For the last three months of my stay I also rented the famous “studentenfiets”, the (yellow) student bike. This was very handy, even though also before that I didn't have any problems walking to the school almost everyday, about 2-3 kilometers. I felt that distances were quite small in Gent. But the bike was fun, and I even did one touristic tour on it around the city area. I would recommend those people who rent a bike to use it also to see other places except the city center. I did not take part in Erasmus student parties, which I think many students do. I found it more interesting to try to meet people from Gent and to do the kind of things "local" people do. And of course I was already going to all those concerts, and jams…
Some things I learned while studying in Gent
Studying in Gent was my first experience of living abroad. Already because of this I learned a lot of things, mostly about myself, but also about a different kind of country and culture. I don't think that it's very easy or even beneficial to compare Finland and Belgium, or for example Helsinki and Gent. One thing that I discovered anyway about Belgium is that it seems to be really strongly devided into different kind of areas, based on language but also politics and other things. It was interesting to see this after previously knowing mostly only Brussels. I think after living a couple of months in Gent I don't have a clear picture about many areas which can be very important for those people who permanently live there. So my knowledge is quite small. What was interesting to see anyway, was for example the different ethnic groups of people in the city and how they live together. This interaction was happening a lot also in terms of music. One very interesting place that I got to know in Gent was the cultural centre De Centrale with the many multicultural activities they have, including a world music school.
As far as my self discoveries, I think many people who have lived abroad share these kind of experiences. For me it was interesting to be surrounded by people who didn't know anything about me, and about whom I also knew nothing. This led to a situation where I had to look at myself in a new way, since I couldn't resort to the same "roles" I was used to having in Finland. This experience can be quite liberating, but it can also make you feel a lack of "belonging," so to say. I think for me it was anyway a positive experience, and made me a bit more aware about my self perception. If the way to inner freedom goes through understanding of one's self, maybe this whole experience brought me a bit further on that road too…Besides this "philosophical" explanation, practically I noticed that I could many times pay more attention to the things I was doing in the moment, without having to think so much about my role in the whole situation. I just did things. What also helped of course was that I didn't have all the stress and certain obligations connected with studying sometimes.
As a whole, during my studies in Gent I didn't expect to get so many new experiences, meet so many new people, not only connected with music, and to start to feel myself in many ways at home in a new place. It would've been nice to get to know better many of these people, but maybe half a year is a bit short time for that. One very positive discovery for me as a musician was the wide range of music styles/traditions you could hear performed live in different venues. As I'm interested in many music styles, this was one of the best sides of Gent for me. Time will show what kinds of things studying in Gent has brought to my own music making. What I know already based on this experience is that if I will have a possibility to live abroad again, I will not be afraid to do that.
Hints for those who are planning to study abroad
I would put an emphasis on being active in getting to know new people. I met a lot of really friendly and open people, but many of these contacts would have not happened or they would've had a lesser role unless I was also active in initiating them. Besides that it's of course also important to stay in contact with friends and family in your homeland. Generally I tried to keep a positive but realistic attitude. I didn't face any special difficulties while being abroad, but of course everyone has some "bad moments" every now and then. I wanted to focus on the positive things, which were always the majority anyway. Already before starting my exchange studies I had met a lot of Erasmus exhange students here in Helsinki. This was also beneficial for my own experience of living abroad.