in memoriam

Pócs Katalin

Vita – based on Portfolio 2018

Portfolio 2018 - Career assessment

I was born in Budapest. My parents were music-loving people, so I got in touch with classical music as a child. We went to concerts and to the Opera a lot, where I had wonderful, unforgettable experiences. The idea of teaching was something I was interested in as a little girl. My favourite game was teaching my dolls, making them into a class and of course keeping a diary. Needless to say, the most important subject was opera. I was also interested in composing at that time. I composed songs with piano accompaniment, and sometimes I even wrote the lyrics. I also wrote little piano pieces at that time. I continued my musical studies at the Music School of the VIth District under the guidance of excellent teachers with a high level of professional knowledge. The first three years were taught by teacher candidates from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, and it was an interesting experience to learn different teaching methods. After that, I was taught by a professionally renowned and excellent piano teacher to whom I owe a lot. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my piano teacher. The music primary school I went to in Knight Street had an intense choral life and this was also a defining moment for me. After the music primary school, I passed the entrance examination for the music composition course at the Béla Bartók Secondary School of Music in 1978. Here the world really opened up for me, I absorbed many new experiences, and the world of instruments and contemporary music opened up to me. Almost every evening, I listened to the most wonderful concerts from the balcony of the Academy of Music. My composition teacher is a person of fantastic high standards, both humanly and professionally. But I also got a lot from my other teachers during my years of study. In 1982 I passed the entrance examination for the composition course at the Liszt Academy of Music (formerly the Liszt Academy of Music). My main subject teacher is a renowned and professionally recognised composer at the cutting edge. Several renowned composers have also taught composition-related subjects: counterpoint, instrumental knowledge, orchestration, prosody, electronic composition. I also received a lot of lessons from several of my teachers: piano, solfege, reading scores.In 1987 I graduated as a music theory teacher and in 1988 as a composer. Both my diplomas are excellent. After obtaining my diplomas I worked as a freelance composer and received several scholarships.In 1994 I started to teach piano at the basic level at the Lukin László Elementary School of Arts in Érd (formerly Érd Municipal Music School). I enjoyed working with children and having previously written several pieces for music education, four-hand piano pieces which were published in print, it was a pleasure to teach them. In 1997, after moving to Budafok from the 6th district in 1996, I took another half-time job (piano teacher) at the Nádasdy Kálmán Elementary and Primary School in Budafok, so I worked in two places. My colleagues here were very welcoming and I have had a good working relationship with them ever since. In 1999, after the opportunity to take up a full-time position in Budafok, I left the Érd Music School with a heavy heart, because teaching and composing in two places at the same time was quite a burden for me. Since then I have been teaching piano and improvisation full-time in Budafok, working in different member schools. In 2002, I graduated from the Béla Bartók Institute of Music at the University of Miskolc with a diploma in piano teaching and chamber music with distinction in evening classes. Looking back on my years of study, I was taught by more and more excellent piano teachers. I felt that I had to express this gratitude and thanks in the form of a piece of music, so last year I composed a six-movement piano cycle for my piano teachers. It was a seminal experience for me to be awarded the Banff Center for the Arts Composition Fellowship in 1998, which enabled me to spend two and a half months in Banff, Canada. I also performed in one of my pieces. It was an interesting experience to work together with scholarship artists from different countries. The permanent change of environment was beneficial for my creative and pedagogical work. My other major professional trip was an invitation from a fellow harpist in Bloomington and Indiana University, Purdue University in August 2016. My works are regularly performed at concerts, recitals, radio (where several of my works have been recorded), in Germany and abroad (Lüneburg, Bourges, Vienna, Berlin, Rome, Transylvania, Groningen, Banff, Oregon, Bloomington, Chicago), and several of my works have been published in print and on CD (see the section on Independent Creative Activity).

Scholarships:

1987-1988 Kincses Kuratórium Scholarship

1988-1991 Kodály Zoltán Zenei Scholarship

1991-1994 Művészeti Alap (ma Magyar Alkotóművészek Országos Egyesülete) Scholarship

1998-1999 XXII. kerületi Önkormányzat Művészeti Scholarship

The Violin Concerto, which I composed during this time, was performed by the district’s professional orchestra with a solo by a famous violinist.

1998 Banff Center for the Arts Scholarship.

Awards and honours:

1986 – First prize in a competition for composers in memory of Ferenc Liszt,

1992 – Fourth prize in the Roodepoort International Eisteddfod of South Africa,

1993 – Szeged – 2nd prize in the Composers’ Competition “Music of the Future”.)

2012 – Second prize in the mixed choir category at the 3rd International Composition Competition in Memory of Zoltán Kodály, without first prize.

About my work in music education:

My teaching is a job I do with total dedication and commitment. I strive to bring out the best in each of my students, based on their individual abilities, and to pass on the professional knowledge and experience I have gained. It is important to broaden the horizons of the students, to make them familiar with music and the other arts, to make them love music and to pass on universal human values. They will become different people if they develop a love of serious music and an identification with artistic values from their student years. The design is based on the requirements and curriculum of the primary art education, the 1998 Mogyoród Romi suli publishing house curriculum guide and the local curriculum of our school. I try to incorporate individual colour into the planning, taking into account the individual abilities of each student. I consciously plan the work and curriculum for the year, broken down by individual pupils and kept in the main subject diary. But I also make notes on my students in a separate notebook. I use the assessment of my students to confirm and further develop students’ strengths and areas for improvement. I strive to create a relaxed, liberated atmosphere in my piano and improvisation lessons. Children enjoy what they are doing. If one of my students is in emotional distress (family problems, illness, learning difficulties) I do my utmost to be there to help. I have a good relationship with my colleagues and head teachers, they give me useful advice, we listen to each other’s work and consult each other often. When I prepare a pupil for a competition, I often ask my colleagues for their opinion and we listen to each other’s performances. This is always very useful and constructive for all of us. I always perform with my students in the four-handed competitions in the teacher-student category. I am a regular performer at the school teachers’ concerts, mostly performing my own works. I feel that chamber music is very important and I often teach my students four and six-handed pieces, which develops their social skills. Most recently, we performed my six-hand piece Romance and Mulatto at my composer’s recital, a composition I composed for my students. But also very memorable for me was the teaching and performance of Károly Thern’s Hungarian March for six hands. I also feel that intensive contact with parents is important. This is usually done by e-mail, telephone, in person, at parents’ meetings, while organizing music camps. If a problem arises with one of my students, whether it is illness, learning difficulties, or the idea of a change of voice, parents are always partners in solving the problem. I often organise joint activities for my pupils. Concert and opera improvisation camps I always hold my joint lessons before the Christmas break, ensuring a Christmas atmosphere. They are also rehearsals for the semester concerts and it is useful to play the pieces of the semester concerts in the common lesson, because they can be developed even further. During these lessons I also hold musical puzzles, from which the children learn a lot and the modest prizes are a motivating tool. I also always have a Christmas improvisation lesson, where we give each other presents based on drawings. I feel it is important to organise contemporary music shows. My aim is to make pupils aware of contemporary music and not to be alienated by it. These presentations take the form of a performance and my teaching colleagues are usually present. In my lessons I use the internet, smartphone (for recording pieces), computer when circumstances allow. In 2011 and 2015, I suffered a serious illness. I was teaching while working during the treatment sessions in an already difficult life situation. Teaching, the love from the children and composing music showed me the way out, the purpose and the direction. During this difficult time, I received a lot of support from my colleagues, both mentally and physically. I am grateful to them for standing by me as one person.