VISION

As specified in art. 3 of the Statute, the Imola Academies Foundation, which is not for profit, exclusively intends to pursue social solidarity in the field of the promotion of culture and musical art, through the disclosure of musical knowledge among young people, the enhancement of music in education, the conservation and renovation of artistic or environmental goods, which are also important for the history and performance of music. However, the focus of the Imola Academies Foundation’s activity remains higher education in music, a scope in which the Academy has reached peaks of absolute excellence over the years.

MISSION

In 1981, Maestro Franco Scala gave body to a revolutionary educational intuition, experimenting, so to speak, “in corpore vili” (ie, on his own students of the Music Conservatory of Pesaro) the added value that different thoughts on music interpretation, as well on the mechanical-digital conception, could have implemented the overall individual growth of the single student. It was then on March 6th of 1989 that a tutelary deity of world pianism, Vladimir Ashkenazy, officially inaugurated with a public concert the activity of a new organization, which took the legal form of non-profit cultural association: the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale “Incontri col Maestro” of Imola.
The founding cultural paradigm, according to which every student of Franco Scala, during their educational process, could not confront a single teacher, but a whole teaching class- which was rigorously selected among the heirs of the highest interpretive schools worldwide- catalyzed and attracted to Imola an impressive number of young talents of musical interpretation coming from all over the world. The very distinct internationalization that this immediately entailed, made the Imola Academy such a rich crossroads of exchanges between musical experiences that were so different and so transversal that, in progress of time, the complex cultural synthesis that derived from it, allowed us to talk about the birth of a real “Interpretative School of Imola”. Today, the governance of the new Imola International Academies Foundation “Incontri con il Maestro” has wanted to keep in its statute the phrase “Incontri col Maestro” not as a mere formal homage to the founding ratio that inspired Maestro Scala, but rather to innovate the cultural contribution thanks to its pluralistic declination: both in the musical disciplines and in the teaching staff.
Each student of the Courses that the Academy has activated for the different instruments (guitar, flute, viola, violin, cello, in addition to the piano and its ancestor, the fortepiano) and for ensemble music and for conducting and composition, not only does it have the obligation of training under the guidance of several professors, in each specific field, but it must also interact with colleagues of all the other courses, due to the focus that the new Foundation has decided to pay to chamber music. This acts as a multiplier element of the learning opportunities of genres, forms, styles, compositional expressions of the history of European-cultured music and, at the same time, as a contributing factor for widening the range of professional experiences of each student. In the field of composition, the creation of a very close connection between the courses of counterpoint, harmony, musical analysis (and, of course, compositional practice) and that of conducting, allows the student that has an inclination towards creative musical writing, to master precociously the fundamental elements of orchestration. On the other side, a student that is more inclined to the interpretation of symphonic compositions can benefit from a very wide linguistic-musical knowledge in decoding orchestral scores, even in the most difficult area of contemporary music.
The italian government recognition of the equivalence Bachelor and Master’s University Degrees issued by Imola Academies Foundation, together with the introduction of permanent courses of both historical and systematic disciplines, in the humanistic and musicological field, has finally made it possible to actualize a formative purpose always pursued by the Institution. This last one is the highest academic Degree, which is intended not as a formal sanction of a study course, but as the goal of a curricular process aimed at creating musicians (be it performers or composers) with a high critical view of society as a whole. Something, that is to say, that only an authentic humanistic education can, in the age of the Internet and telematics, allow.
To seal the programme, the Imola Academies Foundation is attentive to the connection with the world of production and actively engaged (as specified in the previous tabs) to facilitate and support the entry of students into the labour market.