 |
|
Levy, Kirilov, Silverman
|
Professors often learn from students as well as teach them, but rarely is the exchange of knowledge as balanced as it is between anthropology professor Carol Silverman, music professor Mark Levy, and folklore graduate student Kalin Kirilov. The relationship is an exemplary instance of what Silverman calls “reciprocal mentoring.”
Both Levy and Silverman, who are participating faculty in the Folklore Program, discovered Bulgarian folk music thirty years ago when international folk dance was popular on college campuses. Their curiosity developed into a scholarly passion, and they have traveled to Bulgaria to pursue their research and improve their musical skills.
Kirilov, a native of Bulgaria, is recognized there as a musical prodigy. Beginning his musical training at age four, he attended schools for music and eventually enrolled in the Bulgarian National Academy of Music and Dance, majoring in music pedagogy. In his young life, he has mastered more than fifteen wind, string, and keyboard instruments.
Kirilov says he came to Oregon to study music in an interdisciplinary environment. At Oregon, Levy and Silverman have taught him to think critically about music in a wider cultural-historical context. “In Bulgaria, Kalin’s training was performance-focused,” says Levy. “Scholars there tend to concentrate on collecting, classifying, and preserving music, while we are more interested in questions like ‘why do people make music.’”
Bulgarians tend to narrowly define folk music and the acceptable styles for playing it, Silverman adds, but American folklorists would rather look at the variations of the music and ask why the musicians made the decisions they did. “The kind of questioning attitude we foster is hard for people coming from another educational system to learn,” she says.
Kirilov has revised his ideas about folk music and performance to include this critical perspective. He says that “studying the cultural and historical processes which lead to changes in musical tradition has helped me to know better what I am performing. I can now distinguish styles that, in Bulgaria, were deliberately mixed for ideological reasons.”
Kirilov is thankful for this new knowledge about his music, and the professors feel equally fortunate to be learning from Kirilov. Trio Slavej, the ensemble that the three have formed through this partnership, includes Levy playing wind instruments and Silverman as vocalist. “For years,” Silverman says, “we sought out Bulgarian musicians, either by going to Bulgaria or by locating visitors from Bulgaria in the U.S., so it’s amazing to have someone here who can teach us.”
|
