The Carols Workshop

A popular initiative for children of all ages

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 11.12.2018, 12:48

To
celebrate the winter holidays, the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum in
Bucharest has re-opened the series of educational workshops titled The Elves’ Village.
We are already familiar with workshops, where people get together to make
masks, puppets or dolls in folk costumes or Christmas decorations, but this
year a group of talented musicians have won us over with a Caroling Workshop.
The initiators of the workshop unveil the magic of musical instruments to all
those curious to decipher the beauty of sounds and extend all visitors an
invitation to sing along in a choir set up on the spot. Marius Niţu, who plays
the violin in the project, told us more:

It was Sânziana who had the idea and
suggested to us to make a caroling workshop, to present something different to
the people, to come up with something new. We’ve thought it would be a good
idea to involve all the children, everyone in the museum, for each of them to
feel what’s like to contribute to the fair. We wanted something different from
the ‘we sing, they listen’ kind of events. We’ve noticed that children liked it
a lot. This has been our first project, our first Christmas workshop, and it’s
been a success. And we intend to continue and organize similar workshops in the
future.

Sânziana
Mircea, pianist and president of the Music Art Academy, the association which
brings together the artists who organized the event, has told us:

We’ve had the immense joy to be here and
organize a caroling workshop, we sang together with all the children in the
room, we set up a choir on the spot, we performed Romanian and international
carols together. Also, I played the piano, the guitar and the violin. I also
sang and took part in a beautiful children’s choir, created on the spot. We’ve
chosen to set up a caroling workshop because going caroling is one of the most
beautiful Christmas traditions, because music unites us all even though we
don’t know each other. The children befriended each other; they have all
stepped out in front of the group to sing. It was another opportunity to see
that music is a universal language and carols have a special way of making us
ready for Christmas.

Amalia
Lazarciuc delighted us with her voice, and then told us how artists prepared
for the workshop.

We have prepared the lyrics, we got the melody line ready, we also prepared a microphone,
and there were moments when the choir was accompanied by my colleagues on the piano,
by Sânziana, Marius on the violin and Raisa on the guitar.

And the
enthusiasm they put in, that brought artists loads of joy. Speaking about that,
here is Amalia Lazarciuc once again.

It is a wonderful feeling, all the
more so as this moment was spontaneous. We didn’t expect so many children to come
caroling. And these are the moments you feel wonderful, moments you don’t plan
ahead, they simply happen, especially at this time of the year, which is very
beautiful.

We
asked Raisa Mihai, who played the violin, where they got this idea of a caroling
workshop.

We wanted to make people happy and enjoy
the tradition of Christmas. We prepared some carols together with these
children who have been here today and whose reaction was awesome! I did not
expect them to react the way they did, they were delighted and joined us
straight away. They were a bit bashful at first, but after that, everyone joined
in.

And
here is what violinist Marius Nitu added to that.

At this time of the year, the tradition
of Christmas cannot go without carols, just as my colleagues have said, music
brings people together and I believe that in this boisterous world carols help
soothe our spirit so that together we may be better and calmer.

Taking
part in the workshop were lots of children, of various ages. 15-year old
Nectaria Iorgulescu told us why she joined the carols Workshop.

I found an opportunity to listen to good
music, on a beautiful winter day!

And
here is what 12-year old Andrei Cristian Iacobescu joyfully told us.

I liked it here, I wanted to see how it
was like and when I saw there were very many people, I braced up and joined in
myself! It was like doing a karaoke!

Seven-year
old Serban Ioan Andrei was brimming with joy.

I liked it! I learned many songs and it was beautiful!

Grown-ups
and kids alike joined in a genuine music celebration.