Professor Ravnopolska-Dean, Students Put Up Online Easter Concert
Every year, the applied music classes at AUBG stage an Easter Concert. And while COVID-19 obstructed the plans for a live performance this spring, that did not stop Professor Anna-Maria Ravnopolska-Dean and her students from putting up an online show. That is how AUBGers from Ukraine, USA, Kazakhstan, Russia and Bulgaria got together – albeit virtually – to greet their fellow students for the holidays.
“My students and I were very impressed by the fact that AUBG continues to function [as effectively] as in a normal situation,” Ravnopolska-Dean said. “And we unanimously decided that we will do an online Easter Concert dedicated to the whole AUBG community. We called it ‘Amazing AUBG.’” The result of the students' efforts was a heartwarming 30-minute piano and harp performance, but the creation process – and teaching applied music online -- was not easy, the professor said.
When AUBG switched to online education, Ravnopolska-Dean had to come up with creative ways to teach new material. The students were sending the professor videos with their performances, and she was sending them back feedback, lessons and scanned sheet music. “It has been a very challenging process, but great fun when we saw that it works,” she said.
In addition to her long-standing career in teaching music, Ravnopolska-Dean is an acclaimed harpist, pianist and composer. She has produced 10 solo CDs, played in the most prestigious recital halls, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Gasteig in Munchen and Mozarteum in Vienna and was featured on WXQR ( New York’s classical radio), BBC, the Bavarian television, Bulgaria’s national TV and radio, as well as many private TV stations.
The musician, who completed her Ph.D. with the monograph “The Harp as a Coloristic Instrument at the Beginning of the 20th Century,” said she enjoys teaching both theoretical and applied classes, especially to people with little musical background. “My career at AUBG combines all my interests: performing, composing, and teaching,” she said. “I compose pieces for my students and we perform together at the end of each semester.”
Ravnopolska-Dean has been with the university since its inception in 1991. Established shortly after the fall of the communist regime in Bulgaria, AUBG had a challenging beginning. “We had almost nothing at this time. We were creating miracles,” she said. “Now AUBG has grown a lot. It has everything that all great universities have: wonderful facilities, and more importantly, wonderful staff, faculty, and students. The only thing that has remained the same is the enthusiasm, the spirit of AUBG.”