Slovenská hudba, Vol. 48, No 3, p.199-213, 2022

Musical Schooling as “Conducted” by Jozef Klocháň

Jozef Klocháň belonged to the generation of the founders of a modern music education system in Slovakia. Being a pupil of Viliam Fedor, the author of the first Methodology of Music Education (Metodika hudobnej výchovy, 1954) in the former Czechoslovakia, he developed an activity-based character of musical schooling. He focused on the children’s choral singing and media (radio) as the means supporting the development of the musicality of children and youth. Later his interest in promotion and popularization of music and singing resulted in the organizing the national singing competition Slovakia’s Nightingale (Slávik Slovenska). In the study we outline the variability of Jozef Klocháň’s activities regarding the school and after-school music education. Using Klocháň’s example we sketch an image of music education and cultivation of children and youth in the 1960s and 1970s in Slovakia.