“I can’t play the piano with frozen hands.” This is how Sara Lía Ochogavías, a student at the Conservatorio Superior de Vigo, expresses herself. Like her, the 300 students enrolled receive classes in inadequate conditions due to the poor state of the facilities. In the classrooms of the center located in the Castro it is colder inside than outside. Moisture seeps through its walls and heat escapes. Water leaks are constant every time it rains heavily. The instrumentalists must coexist with the buckets that catch the leaks in an unsuitable space for musical teaching.
After the last heavy rains they suffered floods. “We arrived on Monday and everything was flooded,” recalls Sara. Those responsible for the center put cardboard in the most humid areas and buckets. In the new building, activities were paralyzed because it was all filled with water. A sign at the entrance warns students and teachers of the risk of falls.
The trace of humidity can be seen in the flaking of the walls, offering an image of abandonment of this higher education center.
A year ago they decided to mobilize to demand a solution from the Xunta. They received promises, but the situation in the conservatory remains the same. The school community urges a comprehensive rehabilitation of the building to be able to teach properly. Sara says that the building was a house before it became a conservatory. The necessary modifications were not made to be able to insulate the property thermally and acoustically to adapt it to music teaching.
Alejandro Martinez
The students also demand that the City Council clean up the pedestrian accesses and put lighting. They claim that the street is in very bad condition. When it rains it turns into a quagmire. Many students have to go up loaded with their instruments and have trouble getting there. Accidents have already been regretted. They also demand the same discounts for using urban transport that university students enjoy.
“We are tired of being ignored,” says Sara on behalf of all the students. A student delegation met yesterday with the nationalist deputy Alexandra Fernández and the mayor Xabier Pérez Igrexas. The BNG will ask the parliament to address the reform of the conservatory, since in this year’s budgets there are not enough items, which reveals a lack of real commitment.
