The jubilee anniversaries are a beautiful way to remember the most important events and feelings. AEC’s 70th birthday is just one of such moments.

I entered the AEC community on October the 1st, 2009, when I started my first mandate as the elected dean of the Faculty of Music, a part of the University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia. Earlier that same year, the Faculty of Music became the partner institution in the project „Widening participation on the Road to membership“ financed by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), and conducted by the late Johannes Johansson, at that time president of the AEC, and  rector of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. His „right hand“ was Martin Prchal, then Chief Executive of the AEC. I could not possibly have a better support at the beginning of my dean mandate, and a better teacher as the AEC!

My first international meeting was the Counselling visit of Jeremy Cox and Darla Crispin within the Sida project at the end of October 2009, and only a few days later, the Meeting of the AEC Polifonia Working Group „Vocal and Instrumental Teaching“ in Banja Luka, the Republic Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both events pushed me towards learning quickly all about Bologna standards with which I didn’t deal before – how to fulfil them, and how to avoid the traps.

But the AEC was not only the best teacher, it was also a great inspiration for opening and widening the international cooperation among its members, because music is all about the exchange – the exchange of sounds, emotions, and knowledge. Music can’t be detained in a box. And the circumstances in my country which lasted since 1991 closed in many ways the opportunity for contacts and exchanges. That’s why I experienced the AEC as the light at the end of the tunnel, and literary felt a wind in my back blown by fantastic personalities like the late Johannes Johansson, Martin Prchal, Pascale de Groote, Jeremy Cox, as the leaders of the AEC, but also by many members of the successive AEC Councils, to mention only a few names: Georg Schulz, Andras Bata, Michael Uhde, and many others. All of them stood always in the first row to suggest, to support, to give advice, and sometimes to work for us,  only to help achieve the best possible results.

My first AEC Annual Congress was in Maastricht, in November 2009, when I met in person many colleagues, and got some nice ideas among which the idea of a European Platform for Artistic Research in Music (EPARM) was the most important. The pilot EPARM conference was held in Belgrade, April 9-11, 2011 in the „large faculty hall“ which was too small to accept more than 130 participants from 23 European countries. The organisation of such an event demanded a great effort from the Faculty staff from the installation of the optical cable to the smallest possible detail. The group of young, highly professional and relaxed AEC staff – Linda Messas, Sirin Tugbay, etc., guided by inspiring Jeremy Cox, Chief Executive, came a few days earlier to give the final touch on the whole organisation. Unforgettable experience!

The work with AEC within the Sida project gave birth to many further activities sincerely supported by all AEC members:

  • InMusWB – Introducing interdisciplinarity in Music Studies in the Western Balkans in Line with European Perspectives (2001-2014), financed by Tempus EU fund– the project grew out from Sida project about which late Johannes Johansson was very proud;
  • EUphony orchestra – preceded by the invitation of the Liszt Music Academy and their rector, prof. Andras Batta at the time when my country could not participate as an equal European member in such kind of projects (2011), and continued by the great support of Prof. Georg Schulz, the rector of the Kunst Universitat Graz, and Mladen Janjanin, the dean of the Music Academy in Zagreb;
  • My lecture within the theme of the „Integrity of Music Conservatories“ at the AEC Annual Congress in St.Petersburg, November 2012;
  • The Presentation of the InMusWB project within the AEC Annual Congress in Budapest, November 2014.

The collaboration with wonderful people gathered around the inspiring timeless theme of music through the AEC, opened further possibilities for various projects in which my Faculty participated (ROSTRUM+, DANUBE project, LISZT project in Serbia, CEEPUS, etc.), and also gave me personally the opportunity to contribute to various activities of AEC and it’s members: the accreditation of the National University of Arts in Astana, Kazakhstan (2013), MusiQuE – Music Quality Enhancement (I became a reviewer in 2021), and in many official bodies for the higher education in Serbia (Commission of Accreditation and Quality Enhancement of the Republic of Serbia – 2016-2018).

Thank you, AEC for everything you made come true in the life of the Faculty of Music in Belgrade and in my personal life!

I wish you the best and the most beautiful in the future and in all your further activities!