O. Mishchenko’s button accordion school in metaphors and realities of creative and pedagogical process
Authors: Yehorov Yehor 
Published: March 2024

Statement of the problem. The creative figure of the Honored Artist of Ukraine, Professor Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Mishchenko (1956–2018) occupies a special and respected place on the map of the Kharkiv button accordion school. O. Mishchenko embodied himself vividly and originally in various forms of creative activity: as a performer, teacher, arranger, researcher. For 38 years, he worked at the Department of Folk Instruments of Ukraine at Kharkiv I. P. Kotlyarevsky National University of Arts teaching the special button accordion class, ensemble, conducting, methods of schooling the bayan / accordion playing. In the 21st century, “Оleksandr Mishchenko’s Button Accordion School” has confirmed its relevance as a fruitful branch on the spreading tree of bayan art of the Kharkiv region. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the proposed article is to substantiate the concept and define the main parameters of O. Mishchenko’s accordion school in view of the versatility of the artist’s creative personality, the specifics of his creative and pedagogical process, and the context of the development of accordion pedagogy in the Kharkiv region. In order to reveal the specifics of the creative and pedagogical process of the performance school by O. Mishchenko, the principle of historicism, biographical method, and deductive approach were introduced into the study, as well as the scientific concept of “activity universalism”, which was developed by O. Komenda (2020). The scientific novelty of the study topic lies in the fact that O. Mishchenko’s button accordion school and the creative figure of its founder have not yet become the objects of fundamental scientific research. Research results. Based on the concept of creative universalism of the individual (Komenda, 2020), a differentiated approach to the study of the spheres of O. Mishchenko’s creative activity was used: his hypostases such as performer, teacher, arranger, researcher were considered; his achievements in these spheres of his creative realization were summarized. For the first time, the concept of “O. Mishchenko’s button accordion school” was introduced and described, creative principles were outlined, the idea and methodology of the school were formulated. Characteristic features inherent in arrangements and performance editions by O. Mishchenko are singled out. The peculiarities of his creative-pedagogical process are revealed through metaphors and the realities of a university lesson, interpreted as a miniature reproduction of O. Mishchenko’s school as a whole, where its key parameters are reflected. Conclusion. The long fruitful musical and pedagogical activity of O. Mishchenko allows us to ascertain the existence of his author’s button accordion school, which has relief creative principles, a common performance model, a scientific and methodological base, several generations of pupils, that fully meets to all the criteria put forward by the concept of “school”. If we turn to a generalizing metaphor, then the school by O. Mishchenko can be likened to a kind of a mirror, in the depths of which is reflected the “portrait"”of its founder as a universally gifted creative personality. Among the numerous talents of the artist, we should note his performance gift as the leading one, which confirms his high title of Honored Artist of Ukraine. It is his own creative power as a performer that pushes O. Mishchenko to produce an author’s art school, where the creative and pedagogical principles inherited by him from his Kharkiv teacher, the legendary accordionist V. Ya. Podgorny, acquire not only practical, but also theoretical development, and ones called to form, first of all, the concert performance skills of a bayan player, to disclose of his compositional talent and scientific and theoretical thinking, which helps to create a convincing interpretation of a musical piece.