Toše Fans

After primary school in Kruševo, Toše went down to Bitola to attend the secondary music school. It was here that his teachers moved him from the clarinet department to solo singing — partly, the story goes, because his family could not afford a clarinet. The school's building is recorded on Wikimedia Commons under the name Toše Proeski Music School.

The music school in Bitola was founded in 1947 in the Radio Bitola building as a primary music school, and took its later name in 1980. It provides a full musical education — solfège, theory and history — with departments for instruments and for solo singing, where Italian is part of the programme. Its list of former students includes Toše, Karolina Gočeva and many other well-known Macedonian musicians.

His years here gave him the classical foundation he relied on throughout his pop career; even at the height of his fame he continued to study classical singing in Skopje.

This is a working school. Student concerts and recitals take place during the school year, but it is not a tourist attraction and should be treated as a place of study.

• View the building from the street; do not enter without permission.
• Bitola is about 53 km from Kruševo, which makes it a natural second-day stop on our memorial route.
• Read about the festival years that followed his studies.