Uibel, Stefanie 1,2

 

1 Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Goethe

University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

2 Musikkindergarten Berlin e.V., c/o Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin,

Germany

 

Corresponding author:

Dr. Stefanie Uibel, MD

Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine,

Goethe University, Theodor-Stern-Kai 7, 60590 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Phone: +49 69 6301 6650, Fax: +49 69 6301 7053

 

Abstract

In 2005 the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim initiated the formation of the Musikkindergarten Berlin as the first kindergarten in which music is not only used as an occasional add-on but as the central education medium during every childrens’day.

Skills of especially trained kindergarten teachers combined with regularly visits of professional musicians of the Staatskapelle Berlin, the States Opera Orchestra, form the basis of a new education concept, in which the children experience music in all its different aspects and in its unique capability as a transfer medium into all the other educational areas. Method, ambition and experimental ground hereby is not only education in or with music, but ‘education through music’ (D. Barenboim).

This article gives information about and examples of firsthand experiences during the last six years.

Introduction

Everything began with an idea of the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, who wanted to have a drastically change of childrens’ education. For him, playing and conducting music almost all the time of his life, music is a fundamental human expression. He often tells the story, that grown up in a home with both parents working as piano teachers, it was absolutely normal, that every person he met played piano and every time the doorbell rang someone came and played piano. Therefore piano playing for him was a natural part of human expression forms, something that one has not to learn in particular; only playing well seemed to be the important thing to learn.

Triggered by his own experiences in which he could not only find elements of the world inside the music but also the other way around, learning a lot about the world through the music, he wished to offer children also this access to their lives.

History and facts

In March 2005, one year after another group around Barenboim had built up a music school project in Ramallah Palestine, he wanted to establish a kindergarten in Berlin, in which "not musical education, but education of children through music" (D. Barenboim) could take place. Since this moment, many people try to fill this on the one hand rather natural, but on the other extraordinary and new idea in terms of pedagogical approaches with concepts, participants and life.

 

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