Four visiting teachers from the Magnificat Institute in Vicenza

Four visiting teachers from the Magnificat Institute visited the Conservatory of Vicenza through the JERUS-IT-ARTS project. Though each followed a different path to music, their experiences shared a common thread of learning, renewal, and gratitude.

Jamil, born and raised in Jerusalem, grew up surrounded by music in a family of musicians and singers. He discovered the Magnificat Institute as a child, studied piano for ten years, and went on to earn his degree in Renaissance and Baroque singing through the agreement between the Conservatory of Vicenza and the Magnificat. Now training to become a choir conductor, he leads the Yasmeen Choir in Jerusalem. His four days studying choir conducting with Maestro Ezio Spinoccia left a deep mark: he came away with a clearer sense of the path ahead and called the experience unforgettable. For him the work also connected to a discovery within the project itself, the music archive of the Custody of the Holy Land, where a requiem written by Palestinian composer Augustin Lama after the 1948 war moved him as both a lament and a quiet act of hope.

Nadine Shaheen, a music teacher from the Old City of Jerusalem, conducts choirs and teaches music theory, having begun her own studies at the Magnificat at the age of ten before moving from piano to cello. She had visited Italy many times, and returning to the hall in Vicenza where she once recorded a CD with the Yasmeen Choir stirred old memories. Working at the Conservatory of Vicenza, she gained new techniques she intends to carry back to her three choirs and the children she teaches, blending the Italian vocal approach she observed with the Arabic music at the heart of her own tradition.

Yevgeni Markel, who has taught classical guitar at the Magnificat for nearly fifteen years, came to music through rock before falling in love with the classical instrument as a teenager.
Over the years his focus shifted from performing to teaching, which he sees as his greatest contribution, a way of shaping not only musicians but better people. Studying with Professors Stefano Viola and Riccardo Tamai, at the Conservatory of Vicenza, confirmed that he was on the right path while opening him to new ideas. He described himself as a tube that must stay open at both ends, always receiving in order to keep giving, and he was grateful for the chance to renew his methods like fresh water.

Tala Kawi, a twenty-five-year-old guitarist from Jerusalem now pursuing a master's at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, had long dreamed of studying in Italy. Through Professor Viola's lessons on guitar pedagogy, she encountered the methodologies she had lacked as a student and learned how to adapt the instrument to children of different ages. The experience taught her to tailor her teaching to each student's goals and to understand the deeper reasons behind every musical choice, drawing from many approaches to better serve those she teaches.