Bosnian student eases pain of war with music

Published: Monday, March 1, 1999

Monday, March 1, 1999

PROFILE: After escaping from Sarajevo, Spaic finds new home in Los Angeles

By Joy McMasters

Daily Bruin Contributor

Music saved her life, literally.

During the civil war in Yugoslavia, Sanja Spaic came to Los Angeles to study her beloved music with the aid of San Francisco journalist Lois Melkonian.

"Music meant so much to me during the war. It was an escape from reality," said Spaic, a second-year ethnomusicology student.

Concerts abounded in the besieged city of Sarajevo during the war.

Through the arts, Sarajevans proclaimed, "They can kill us, but they cannot kill our soul," said Spaic, who has played the piano since age 8.

Five minutes after leaving for a concert one night, a grenade hit her family's apartment. The room which held the piano she had played for years was destroyed - the room they had thought was the safest, Spaic said.

The war spanned Spaic's high school years, killing many of her friends and prompting her brother to flee to the Czech Republic to avoid battle.

"It made me who I am," Spaic said.

The war also allowed her to meet Melkonian, a journalist who covered the war from San Francisco for four years.

A family friend of the Spaic's and visiting professor at UC Berkeley offered the Spaics as contacts in Bosnia when they heard journalists were interested in reporting on the war's aftermath firsthand.

Spaic spent a whole day with the journalists as they interviewed and investigated. She was fascinated with their work, Melkonian said.

The first time they met, Melkonian saw that "there was something special about Sanja," and knew that she had to leave her business card, offering the opportunity to stay with her family in San Francisco for a year to learn English. Three months later, Spaic called to take Melkonian up on her offer.

A local Catholic high school offered to pay Spaic's tuition for a year, and Melkonian soon called to tell Sanja all the arrangements were made.

"I couldn't believe it because (Lois) had only known me a few days," said Spaic. "I thought that she would forget about it."

Sanja arrived in August to repeat her senior year of high school, this time in a new county and this time in English.

"It was really hard for me to come here," Spaic said, but she recognized she may not ever have another opportunity to live with an American family and practice English, a language she had only studied in the classroom.

Melkonian and her family have helped Spaic adjust to life in the US.

"Lois's family is like second family," Spaic said. "We are really close."

Though she has been in the Melkonians' Christmas picture for the past three years, Melkonian said, "I feel most comfortable calling her extended family because I don't want to infringe on the relationship she has with her family."

Though Spaic prepared herself for only a year away from her family, while in San Francisco, she decided to apply to UCLA to study music.

UCLA's ethnomusicology department, the only one in the nation, offers students the opportunity to study music of the world, and learn about their cultures and emotions through music, said Tim Rice, chair of the ethnomusicology department.

"Our program offers a global perspective on music traditions," Rice said. "Most programs concentrate only on local or western classical music."

"I knew ethnomusicology was all that I wanted to study. This is the only school I applied to," Spaic said. "I knew if I didn't get into UCLA I'd go back home."

Spaic said her decision to remain in the U.S. and study at UCLA was the second hardest she had ever made. But she values the time she is spending here because of what the ethnomusicology department has had to offer both scholastically and socially.

"I really like this department because it's small," said Spaic. "My really close friends that I have made here are from my department."

After escaping from the "ethnic cleansing" of Bosnia, UCLA's greatest extracurricular offering for Spaic has been its diversity.

"I really enjoy the cultural diversity here. I just enjoy being around all different races," said Spaic. "It's important to meet people and learn about them and their culture."

Spaic hopes to graduate from UCLA in three years and return to Sarajevo to work on her master's degree because she feels emotionally fulfilled in her home with her family, she said.

"After she graduates, I'll take her home to Sarajevo and spend a few weeks, and take it full circle," Melkonian said.BEN SCHWARTZ

Ethnomusicology student Sanja Spaic came to the U.S. from Bosnia with the help of an American journalist with whom she interviewed.

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