A Summer Concert at the Children’s Village – An Evening When Results Spoke Louder Than Promises
What excitement there has been at the Children’s Village these past few days!
“We didn’t sleep at all last night, waiting for the concert,” said the beaming Emina, Uroš, Manuela and Bajram, overjoyed that they would finally have the chance to show a packed audience what they had learned over the summer.
What excitement there has been at the Children’s Village these past few days!
“We didn’t sleep at all last night, waiting for the concert,” said the beaming Emina, Uroš, Manuela and Bajram, overjoyed that they would finally have the chance to show a packed audience what they had learned over the summer.
A CROSSROADS OF DEEP MEANING
It would not have been a true “Laza Kostić-style” concert if it had not brought together different kinds of content, performers, generations and audiences.
Everyone present – from Dr. Nemanja Galetić, an anesthesiologist, and Olivera Pejak Prokeš, a judge at the Court of Appeal, to the distinguished delegation from Irig, Laza’s ambassadors from Sremska Kamenica and Novi Sad with their parents, and the many children from the Children’s Village – enjoyed an exciting and diverse programme.
“The price of success is habits” – success comes from habits.
“You don’t get what you want, you get what you earned” – we do not get what we want, but what we have earned through our work.
“Do not waste time” – don’t waste time.
“Practice FOCUS MODE” – practice focusing.
These were just some of the English messages heard on August 30 at the Triple Birthday Concert in the Ceremonial Hall of the Children’s Village in Sremska Kamenica.
And then – the music began.
Solo, duo and trio pieces followed one another: from Gnesin’s Etude, Kazachok, Mozart’s Symphony in G minor and The Chinese Clock, through the little song Naughty Lazar and the song Children of Heaven, to In the Hall of the Mountain King from Grieg’s Peer Gynt.
And since this was also a birthday concert, Birthday Songs were sung – both in Serbian and in English.
They sang for Uroš and Aleksa, as well as for Emina’s sister Mina, who had no idea that that evening she too would receive her very own birthday song as a surprise.
SONGS FROM OUR YARD
Alongside the concert performances, the evening was also a kind of small prelude – an introduction to the poetic work of children without parental care, captured in the touching collection Songs from Our Yard.
Since the young poets Luka Mitrović, Uroš Stanković, Emina Mihajlović and Marko Milovanović were mostly too shy to read their own poems, they were helped by some true veterans – Laza’s ambassadors Lena Labat, Čarna Ergecovac, Aleksa and Mia Kričković. They read the poems of their friends from the Children’s Village with great expression and conviction.
And then something happened that no one could have predicted.
Instead of flowers, the grateful children came up with and presented Anica, Inga, Lena and Marina with what were probably the most unusual gifts they had ever received for helping prepare a concert.
Each of them received – one large pineapple.
Those pineapples will surely be enjoyed with particular delight, but the story of them will remain forever preserved in our memories.
MORE THAN THEY THEMSELVES EVER BELIEVED
That evening, the audience saw something they perhaps had not expected.
They saw children who were happy and proud of having learned so much during the summer: English phrases, mathematics problems, and, above all, a wide variety of musical pieces that they mastered step by step.
But the most important result of the concert could not be measured by the number of pieces learned, English sentences spoken, or mathematics problems solved.
The children showed themselves and others that they could do more than they had ever believed they could.
They pushed beyond their own limits – and, with them, beyond the limits of what the audience expected of them.
That is why perhaps the most beautiful result of the entire summer can be found in the question they began asking as soon as the concert ended:
“When will we have another concert? We want to learn some new, even more exciting pieces!”
When a child who once needed encouragement to learn begins asking for a new challenge, a concert is no longer just a concert.
It becomes proof that one much more important boundary has been moved – the boundary of what a child believes is possible for them.
We would like to thank the City of Novi Sad for its support.
