The two-week Kodály-method seminar came to a close in the capital of Capo Verde on 22 September 2017. The programme was initiated by the Embassy of Hungary in Lisbon and supported financially by Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Praia Camoes Institute also helped fund the two-week Hungarian program.

Professor Cristina Brito da Cruz, a music teacher dedicated to the Kodály-method, held the course in Portuguese. The professor has been cooperating with the Kecskemét-based Kodály Institute for over twenty years and regularly sends students there from the Lisbon Escola Superior de Música. Cristina Brito da Cruz summarised her thoughts about the course by stating that she has managed to make the basics of the Kodály-method known to groups of 20-30 people, many of whom began reading music for the first time and felt that an entirely new world of music open up before them.

The course’s participants were kindergarten or elementary-school teachers, and students of music. It was particularly important to teach the course in Portuguese as the majority of the population speaks Portuguese and Creol, and this enabled the course to be much more intensive than it would have been with translation.

Hungary’s Ambassador in Lisbon, Ms. Klára Breuer felt strongly about initiating this programme because the Government of Cabo Verde intends to develop formal music teaching, and the Hungarian method can facilitate their endeavour.  Music plays an important role in the life of the people of Cape Verde. The Kodály-method enables the teaching of music to many people, without the intrinsic need to purchase expensive instruments. The method also helps students develop a better focus and community-creating capacity through communal singing.

Hungary is dedicated to the deepening of the Hungarian-Cabo Verdean relations, and from 2018 Stipendium Hungaricum scholarship scheme will also be open to students from Cape Verde.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/MTI)