The Memory About Skopje and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9

In 2013, the International Skopje Summer Festival (founded in 1980) was traditionally opened on June 21, the World Day of Music, with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The opening ceremony had a symbolic message: the performance of the symphony marked the 50th anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Skopje in 1963. This musical event was the starting-point of the research which is aimed at presenting a contemporary redefinition of Beethoven’s musical legacy and to analyze the meaning of the composition in the context of memory about a particular urban environment. At the same time the primary topic for analysis was expanded with the recent cultural-political project titled “Skopje 2014,” realized in the last decade, with purpose to obtain a more dynamical level of discussion that marks the relationship between music and memory in the urban history of Skopje.