Daladier Pessoa Cunha Lima

Rector of UNI-RN

As rector of the UFRN, from 1987 to 1991, I attended several recitals by professors and students of E. de Música, in auditoriums with precarious and improvised facilities. It was obvious that the masters, with a high professional level, and their disciples deserved a much better place to carry out their tasks and show their artistic talents. A striking fact was the visit to the UFRN of a Canadian trio, who used a piano. The management of the School proposed that the presentation take place in the auditorium of the Rectorate and, to make up for the lack of a piano, a keyboard was fitted out. The existing piano was inaccessible in the auditorium, still under construction, by E. de Música. After this marked disappointment, the rector decided to buy a grand piano for the auditorium of the presbytery, a decision which materialized quickly, and to do everything possible to build a new building for the School of Music, a project fortunately carried out with complete success.

In November 2022, the School of Music, created by Dean Onofre Lopes, celebrated its 60th anniversary. Under the current leadership of Professor Zilmar Fernandes, the date was celebrated with musical performances, tributes and some speeches. The ceremony took place in the Onofre Lopes auditorium, with a capacity of 250 people, offering comfort and acoustics rare to find in places with the same destination. One of the highlights was the performance of the UFRN Philharmonic Orchestra, which has more than 50 students from the University and is conducted by Professor André Luiz Muniz de Oliveira. The orchestra serves as an orchestra lab for UFRN undergraduate and graduate students. Many well-deserved tributes have been paid to former deans, former directors of the School, former professors and all those who have been useful in the development of E. of Musica. After all, there are six decades of excellent performance in favor of the musical art of RN, which since 1991, the year of the debut of the new building, has occupied the best seat of music schools in Brazil.

I will always be grateful to have my name among the winners. I did not attend the 60th anniversary ceremony due to health issues. To speak on behalf of the former directors, the choice fell on Professor Eugênio de Lima Souza, who is part of a clan of people gifted with a great musical inclination, in addition to holding the highest academic titles in the guitar field. Eugênio is a partner in a family business that sells musical instruments. In this effort, he met a client who is a retired UFRN driver who worked in Dean Daladier’s office. This driver said that one night of heavy rain, he received a call from the dean, asking him to go to UFRN to collect the car to take it to the music school, because he was worried about the water that would probably flood the floor of the stage of the new building, in the final phase of construction. To sum up, when day broke, there was the dean, his wife, the driver and an employee, with brooms, rags and squeegees in hand, trying to dry the floor of the stage of the current School of Music, “this same floor on which, now, we are standing.

A few days later, Eugênio sent me a video of his speech and told me that he remembered that episode, to serve as an example of love for a cause, of how many embraced the idea of ​​building , on the central campus of UFRN , a temple of the arts, mainly music.

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