The Academy of Music ( or MUZA) is a

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

music school A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department (of a larger in ...

based in

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

. It is one of the three art academies affiliated with the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb (, ) is a public university, public research university in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest Croatian university and one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe. The University of Zagreb and the Unive ...

, along with the Academy of Dramatic Art and the Academy of Fine Arts. It is the oldest and largest music school in the country, tracing its origins back to 1829 when the Zagreb Musical Society's school () was established, at a time when Croatia was part of the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...

. After World War II the Academy was officially recognized as an institution of higher education and in 1979 it became part of the

. The Academy today has around 500 students and a 150-member teaching staff. The Academy traditionally organizes two grand concerts every year held at the

Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall () is a large concert hall and convention center in Zagreb, Croatia. It is named after Vatroslav Lisinski, a 19th-century Croatian composer. The building has a big hall with 1,841 seats and a small hall with 305 s ...

, along with almost 300 various smaller concerts throughout the year held at smaller venues around Zagreb.

History

The Academy traces its roots to the in-house music school established in February 1829 by the German-language ''Agramer Musikverein'' (or Zagreb Musical Society) modeled after the

Musikverein The ( or ; ), commonly shortened to , is a concert hall in Vienna, Austria, which is located in the Innere Stadt district. The building opened in 1870 and is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. The acoustics of the building's 'Grea ...

in Vienna and which later evolved into the present-day Croatian Music Institute. The school originally offered three-year courses in singing and

wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitch ...

s. The school became the Institute's conservatory in 1916. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the school continued to grow and was renamed several times. Following the dissolution of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

in 1918 and the establishment of the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

it became the "Royal Conservatory" in 1921 (''Kraljevski konzervatorij'') and then the "Royal Academy of Music" (''Kraljevska muzička akademija'') in 1922. At the time the school comprised primary, secondary and tertiary levels of musical education. In 1923 its teachers first gained the title of professors and the Academy was re-organized into five main departments. In 1940 the Academy was officially recognized as a university-level faculty. After World War II in 1951 the school is broken up into the primary and secondary music school (the present-day "Vatroslav Lisinski" School of Music) and the university-level academy named Zagreb Academy of Music (''Muzička akademija u Zagrebu''), which originally had seven departments. In 1967 the Academy established its

Musicology Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, ...

Institute which later grew into an additional department in 1974, and five years later the Academy was incorporated into the

in 1979. The Academy is the only Croatian member of the

European Association of Conservatoires The European Association of Conservatoires (AEC) is the main association of colleges and university schools of music in Europe and represents the interests of institutions that are concerned with training for the music profession. It is abbreviate ...

(AEC), the main European association of

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

s and

university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

schools of music.

Location

The Academy currently occupies the reconstructed Ferimport building at

Republic of Croatia Square Republic of Croatia Square () is one of the biggest squares in Zagreb, Croatia. The square is located in Donji grad (Zagreb), Lower Town, with the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, Croatian National Theatre building at its centre. It i ...

which was completed in September 2014, following delays which pushed its completion date by three years from the originally planned date of 2011. The Academy had signed a 100-year lease contract with the City of Zagreb in 2009, which also agreed to provide half of the HRK 210 million (

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

27.5 million) funding spent to restore the building (with the other half provided by the University of Zagreb and the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports). The restored building occupies some 12.000 square meters spread over three underground and eight ground levels, and hosts 7 departments of the Academy with its 150 full-time employees, several dozen contractors and 550 students. The Academy also operates a regional department in

Rijeka Rijeka (; Fiume ( �fjuːme in Italian and in Fiuman dialect, Fiuman Venetian) is the principal seaport and the List of cities and towns in Croatia, third-largest city in Croatia. It is located in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County on Kvarner Ba ...

which offers courses in singing and piano.

Organisation

Departments

As of 2010 the academy has eight departments: *

Musical composition Musical composition can refer to an Originality, original piece or work of music, either Human voice, vocal or Musical instrument, instrumental, the musical form, structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new pie ...

and

music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "Elements of music, ...

department (''Odsjek za kompoziciju i teoriju glazbe'') *

department (''Odsjek za muzikologiju'') *

Conducting Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as an orchestral or Choir, choral concert. It has been defined as "the art of directing the simultaneous performance of several players or singers by the use of gesture." The primary d ...

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

and

percussion instruments A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

department (''Odsjek za dirigiranje, harfu i udaraljke'') *

Singing Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...

department (''Odsjek za pjevanje'') *

Piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

and

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

department (''Odsjek za klavir, čembalo i orgulje'') *

String instrument In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...

s and

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

department (''Odsjek za gudačke instrumente i gitaru'') *

Wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitch ...

s department (''Odsjek za duhačke instrumente'') *

Music education Music education is a field of practice in which educators are trained for careers as primary education, elementary or secondary education, secondary music teachers, school or music conservatory ensemble directors. Music education is also a rese ...

department (''Odsjek za glazbenu pedagogiju'')

References

External links