Local professor melds music,
current events
Staten Island Register
April 27, 2004
Milos Raickovich, as an Adjunct Assistant professor
at the College of Staten Island, gives his students so much more
than music courses.
Yes, he teaches courses in Composition; Conducting;
Counterpoint; Introduction to Music History; Introduction to Jazz
History; World Music and Rudiments of Music. But what this
composer/conductor brings to the students is the global wealth of
his education, travel, creativity and passion.
Raickovich enjoys teaching his students at CSI,
noting that most begin of music similar to students at other U.S.
colleges where he has taught, but differently than students in
Europe.
“Their general knowledge of music is quite limited,
which I see to be a result of the funding cuts for music with many
of the students not having music in elementary school,” he said. “In
Yugoslavia, every grade has had a music textbook.
“Funding for music is only back in a limited way
now, but music has already been lost to a generation.”
He tried to counteract this loss with many students
not even knowing of such famous American musicians as George
Gershwin by his assignment to his students to review a concert.
“They have a good time and come back excited,” he
said of his encouragement of that step in enhancing their experience
of music.
Music is something Raickovich knows much more of
than just theory, to which his reputation as a composer and
conductor attests.
A CD of his music entitled “New Classicism”
featuring the Moscow Symphony Orchestra conducted by Raickovich is
available by calling the Classical Department at 1-800-ASK TOWER.
Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (Serbia) and becoming a
U.S. citizen in 1992, Raickovich has lived and worked in Belgrade,
Paris, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Hiroshima and New York.
Raickovich roughly defines his style as a blend of
Minimalism, Viennese Classical and early Romantic music. The form of
classical in the sonata cycle, but the tonality is reduced to only a
few noted on the scale, giving it a new energy.
“New Classicism enables me to express my feelings
while at the same time, it satisfies my need for a clear and
coherent musical language,” he said.
Reviewers have acclaimed his accessibly appealing
style of modern music as unconfused music for our confusing times.
In September 2002 when the United States was still
at the crossroads between preparing for war in Iraq and struggling
to stop war, Raickovich composed a piano work entitled
“B-A-G-D-A-D.” This music on a six note theme follows a tradition of
musical dedication where letters of a word are used as only notes in
a piece.
Raickovich describes this artistic statement as a
piece without words that ends like a question.
“We didn’t know what was coming then we still don’t
know what’s coming,” he said. “There is a war going on that is
affecting the quality of education and the quality of life in
general. It’s taking lives; our lives as well as in countries far
away.”
Hearing “B-A-G-D-A-D” at a concert at the Donnell
Library Center in Manhattan, this reporter felt it goes where words
cannot go. The music reaches the recesses of the Heart that knows no
politics, no nationalities, no hatred, no terror, but goes to that
place within us all that knows the fragility and sacredness of each
and every human life.
For the upcoming Belgrade Symphony concert on July
8, Raickovich is working on a new piece orchestrating “B-A-G-D-A-D”
for full orchestra.
by Angie Mangino
Reprinted here with permission from the
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