On Wednesday, February 25, 2026, teaching assistants from the Department of Music Theory and Composition, composers Šimun Čarli Botica and Lukša Vučić, held a composition workshop at the Jakov Gotovac Music School in Sinj.
The pedagogical and methodical framework of the workshop was co-designed by the assistants and the Head of the Department, Prof. Dr. Sc. Davorka Radica, while the artistic and compositional approach was tailored individually to each participant. Over two and a half hours, the students, divided into two separate groups, followed the guidance and suggestions of their two composer-mentors. Based on a proposed initial 4-note motif, they composed short musical pieces "colored" by various assigned moods: cheerful, dreamy, festive, mystical, dramatic, and more. At the end of the session, the students performed their creations on the piano, violin, and flute, and even chose the titles for their "compositions."
The demanding task of encouraging the young musicians' first creative steps, exploring musical ideas, and shaping cohesive pieces was successfully achieved, primarily thanks to the confident guidance of Šimun Čarli Botica and Lukša Vučić, recent Master of Composition graduates from the class of Assoc. Prof. Ivan Božičević.
The workshop was also closely observed by several teachers from the Sinj Music School, who witnessed firsthand the value of this approach to music-making. This provided a strong incentive for their ongoing work in music education for the 290 students currently attending this exceptional music school, which operates in the city of Sinj as well as two branch schools (Otok and Trilj). The director of the music school, Prof. Tamara Romac-Zlodre, expressed her desire to continue the successful long-standing collaboration between the school and the faculty of the Music Department at the Arts Academy in Split, with new joint projects already in the planning stages.
The workshop is part of the institutional research project "UMAS Incubator: Artistic Research in the Community Focus (UMAS-In), IP-UNIST-58" (Arts Academy in Split, from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2029; European Union – NextGenerationEU).
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