Founded in 1946, the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory (until 1990 - the Gorky State Conservatory) almost immediately took the place of one of the best music universities in the country. First of all, this is the merit of a wonderful team of teachers - graduates of the Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories, by the time the work of already famous musicians-performers and competent theorists began.
At the source
The whole world knows these names: A. P. Stogorsky, I. V. Method, A. A. Kasyanov, B. S. Veprinsky, S. L. and A. L. Lazerson, N. N. Poluektova, D. V Zhitomirsky, M. V. Tropinskaya, G. R. Ginzburg, M. S. Pekelis, Y. I. Zak, Y. V. Flier, V. A. Shcherbinin, V. P. Portugalov, O. K. Eiges , A.V. Brown, A.A. Nesterov, B.S. Marants, I.I. Katz, I. B. Gusman. It was they who raised the educational level, which the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory maintains to this day.
One can hardly find a more authoritative musical and public figure, who was the first rector - A. A. Kogan, who was replaced in 1950 by the most excellent musicologist and pianist G. S. Dombaev, who also turned out to be an excellent organizer. His initiatives in every possible way helped the university to remain among the leaders and to occupy an increasingly worthy place every year. The Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory in 1957 received the honorary name of the composer M.I. Glinka.
Climb
Already by the sixties, the conservatory had developed excellent musical traditions, supporting pedagogical schools were created, and in 1965 a system of further education - postgraduate education - began to work. A little earlier, the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory decorated its Big Concert Hall with the organ of the German company Alexander Schuke, students received an increasingly convenient building for classes and new dormitories.
The organ in the hall of the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory was not idle. The lessons in the class of the Honored Artist of the USSR, Professor G.I. Kozlova were extremely popular, very many wanted to get into her class. And, of course, not only to her. But the competition of applicants to the Nizhny Novgorod State Conservatory has always been very large. Teachers of all directions worked exceptionally hard, their students had no equal at the all-Union competitions and festivals of modern music. This was shown especially well by the D. D. Shostakovich festival in 1964.
Theorists
Twenty-one years, since 1972, the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory. Glinka flourished under the guidance of the famous composer, People's Artist of the USSR, Professor A. A. Nesterov. The composer department shone especially brightly during these years, a strong musicology school has developed here, collections of articles and scientific works that have become widely known: “Problems of modern music”, “Problems of music analysis” and many others have been published. One of the most interesting areas for Nizhny Novgorod musicians has developed rapidly - this is musicology. The faculty was in many ways the discoverer.
In the seventies, the Great Concert Hall of the Gorky Conservatory presented to mankind the first performances of Schnittke’s works, sacred music of Rachmaninov, music of Kastalsky, Chesnokov, as well as some Western composers. Each such concert was a revelation and affirmed the general opinion of this university as a bold and honest discoverer of forbidden masterpieces and undeservedly forgotten authors.
New time
Since 1994, the conservatoire’s staff elected as the rector an outstanding conductor, People’s Artist of Russia and Honorary Citizen of Nizhny Novgorod, Professor L. K. Sivukhin. It was then that the university entrusted to him acquired extensive ties with music universities abroad and international status. Now students and trainees from Syria, Japan, France, Denmark, China, the USA, and Jamaica are studying at the conservatory.
In 1996, NNGK was headed by the conductor and composer, Honored Artist, People’s Artist of Russia, member of the Academy of Humanities, winner of many awards and order holder, Professor E. B. Fertelmeister. From that moment, the development of the university flowed in all directions, and integration into the musical culture of the world gained new pace. The credibility of NNGK significantly increased, and in 2005 the university receives the status of an academy. The conservatory has also transformed outwardly: the facade, walls, interiors have become modern, but the atmosphere of creative comfort, created initially, has been preserved in its entirety.
Areas of activity
Now NNGK is the largest center of musical culture of the entire Volga Region, providing the federal district with musical enlightenment, educational and scientific activities, which have been repeatedly awarded with various grants: the Humanitarian Science Foundation of Russia, the Open Society Institute, the Goethe Institute, as well as scholarships DAAD and many others. In addition, the NNGK additionally receives financial support from the state. This allows you to financially support the teaching and accompanist staff, to intensify their creative activities.
Specialists receive higher education in two areas: "education and pedagogy" and "culture and art", which include nine specialties and fourteen specializations. Programs of postgraduate education: postgraduate study in the fields of creative, performing and scientific - "musical art".
Innovation
The best educational programs of innovative Russia were recognized as implemented at the NNGK, among them the following:
- Instrumental Performance Program: piano, organ; orchestral percussion and wind instruments; orchestral string instruments, orchestral folk instruments (department of folk instruments).
- Programs for vocal art: folk singing, academic singing.
- Conducting programs: opera and symphony orchestra, academic choir, military brass band.
More than seven hundred students study at the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory, seventy graduate students and job seekers. Time requires innovations, and they are widely implemented. New faculties and specialties are opened: "acting", "musical sound engineering", "musical pedagogy". The new ones are the specialization of opera and symphonic conducting, the areas of “applied music” and “musicology”, the profiles “music journalism in the media”, “musicology” and “music pedagogy”.
Conditions of education
Students learn in fairly comfortable conditions that allow them to fully plunge into creativity: rehearsal facilities, a publishing complex, a library, a recording studio, dormitories - all this accompanies the accumulation of theoretical knowledge and purely professional skills. Great opportunities for improving performing skills. More than two hundred teachers of the highest qualifications support the students' desire for a truly higher musical education, no matter what type of musical activity they choose: performing solo, conductor, ensemble, orchestra.
The Faculty of Continuing Education and Continuing Education helps young professionals in their future activities. In addition to traditional programs, they also train music lecturers, critical journalists for the media, and radio and TV editors. Support for young specialists is also handled by a special department that promotes the employment of NNGK graduates, which holds a fair of specialists for employers and job seekers. In addition, during training, all students are engaged in educational activities, which, of course, helps them gain experience: performing, lecture and concert. Also, students of NNGK constantly participate in professional competitions at various levels, up to the highest.
The science
Without serious scientific research carried out at the university, the authority of the NNGK would not have such a height. Own school of musicology, unique and highly professional, based on an interdisciplinary approach to science, has a constant interest in the problems of modern music. The Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory, the address of the concert halls of which everyone knows young and old in the city and the region, in addition to educational activities, works a lot for fellow professionals.
Nizhny Novgorod musicologists prepare textbooks for musical universities and successfully publish them together with illustrative material, as this allows their own publishing house and recording studio. Monographs are published, collections of articles written by teachers of the performing departments, conference materials, and many methodological and educational manuals are also published. In Russian culture, every event held by the NNGK becomes a noticeable phenomenon: scientific and artistic projects, concert cycles, scientific conferences, publications and art exhibitions.
International activity
The international authority of the conservatory is constantly and steadily growing, since activities in this direction are large-scale and multifaceted. Regular creative contacts of NNGK with universities in Austria, Germany, China and other countries. Collaboration agreements have been signed with many. Constant exchanges of visits, creative meetings. Students, interns and graduate students from Mongolia, Korea, China, Serbia, Belgium, Austria, France study with the Russians.
Joint festivals are held according to agreements: Folkwang-Hochschule (Germany) has been cooperating with the NISC since 1996, exchanging joint master classes and concert cycles of students, graduate students and teachers in the framework of this cooperation; since 1998, under an agreement, has been undertaking joint musical events with the NNGK Bruckner Conservatory (Austria); Essen hosts a festival prepared by NNGK teachers - “Music of the Outgoing Century”, as well as many other international scientific and artistic projects. NNGK receives guests from the Paris Higher School of Music, the Grand Opera and the Metropolitan Opera (USA).
In Russia
Among the teaching staff of the NNGK, a huge percentage of concert musicians. Even going to the international level, they maintain traditional ties with colleagues from music schools, colleges, schools of the country, where Nizhny Novgorod musicians conduct master classes, competitions, seminars, open lessons, competitions and, of course, concerts.
That is why the competition for applicants is consistently high, and the geography of applicants covers almost all of our vast country. As already mentioned, after graduation, graduates do not remain without help. Education at the NNGK was initially included in the urban cultural environment: students give concerts in the walls of the conservatory itself, in two excellent rooms, and strengthen the authority of the Nizhny Novgorod performing school, touring a lot and successfully.
Training level
More than seven thousand graduates of NNGK work in all major cities of Russia, in the USA, Great Britain, Australia, Japan, Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, adequately representing the Nizhny Novgorod school of music. They also make up the city’s musical elite: the pedagogical and creative basis of the conservatory, philharmonic society, college of music, opera house, choral college, schools and lyceums.
The quality of training is confirmed by numerous victories of students and graduate students in various professional competitions. It is difficult to even list the most prestigious ones, since the list is long:
- All-Russian competition (Moscow, repeatedly).
- International Piano Competition (Germany).
- "In the homeland of Tchaikovsky" (Izhevsk).
- Nesterov Competition (Nizhny Novgorod, wind and percussion instruments).
- "Silver sounds" (Petrozavodsk).
- "The Pearl of the Kuban" (Krasnodar).
- Vila Lobos Competition (Spain, classical guitar).
- "Prikamye-2010" (Perm, folk instruments).
- "Russian Olympus" (Nizhny Novgorod, repeatedly).
- Perpetuum mobile (Ukraine, button accordion, accordion).
- International competition "Volga snowstorm" (Samara, opera singing).
- International competition "Orpheus" (Volgograd, vocals).
- Jurgenson International Competition (composition).
- All-Russian competition (Bashkiria, choral conducting).
- All-Russian choral competition "Russian music of the 19th century".
- All-Russian competition of scientific works of students (RAM Gnesins).
- All-Russian contest named after Babushkin (Moscow, creative work of sound engineers).
Deserved Benefits
NNGK is a constant initiator and excellent organizer of professional competitions in all specialties in the field of music among the younger generation. Especially it should be noted the traditionally strongest competitions in the history and theory of music.
In 2012, the NNGK Olympiad was included in the list of leading Olympiads held under the Union of Rectors of the Ministry of Education of Russia. The status of such events allows winners and prize winners to bypass entrance exams when entering the conservatory.
Faculties
Piano performance has always been the main and leading specialty since the founding of the university. There are five departments at the piano faculty: two special pianos, chamber ensembles, accompanists, as well as a harpsichord and organ section.
The orchestra faculty also exists from the very first day of the opening of the conservatory. There are three departments: string, woodwind, as well as brass and percussion instruments.
There is only one department at the faculty of folk instruments ; such a structure is the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory named after Glinka. The bayan faculty is not separately present in it, but specialization itself, of course, exists within the boundaries of this department. The vocal faculty has two departments - solo singing and the department of musical theater. The Department of Conducting in two departments teaches choral conducting and opera-symphony. The composer-musicological faculty owns six departments. Among them are compositions and instrumentation; music theory; music history; sound engineering; music journalism; musical pedagogy. In addition, the NNGK has a faculty of continuing education and five general university departments.
Addresses
Applicants submit documents to the address: Piskunova street, house 40. Previously, you can make inquiries by phone 8-831-411-88-78. The selection committee has been working since June 20 in auditorium 105 on the ground floor from 9.00 to 17.00, with a lunch break from 12.00 to 13.00. The hostel is located at 71 Genkina Street. Phone: 8-831-432-25-72.