NEC Announces 2011-12 Abreu Fellows 

The 2011-2012 Abreu Fellows are: Aisha Bowden, Julie Davis, David France, Ben Fuller, José Luis Hernández-Estrada, Stephanie Lin Hsu, Jennifer Kessler, Alysia Lee, Avi Mehta, and Albert Oppenheimer.

From the New Englad Conservatory of Music 
http://necmusic.edu/nec-announces-2011-12-abreu-fellows

April 11, 2011

NEC Welcomes Third Class of Abreu Fellows to Train as Leaders of El Sistema-inspired Programs in US
Class Includes Several with Prior El Sistema Experience

The Abreu Fellows Program at New England Conservatory is delighted to announce its third class of 10 post-graduate musicians “passionate for their art and social change” to train as leaders of El Sistema-inspired music education programs in the United States. The program was created in response to El Sistema founder José Antonio Abreu’s 2009 TED Wish to Change the World and has produced young musical entrepreneurs who are leading nucleos (music education programs) in Juneau, Los Angeles, Durham NC, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston and—soon to come—Cleveland and Cincinnati (see Rebecca Levi from first class of Fellows in photo.)

Classes begin August 29 and continue through May 2012 and include residencies in several American cities and in Venezuela. The certificate program is under the direction of Erik Holmgren, Education Director and Stephanie Scherpf, Managing Director of El Sistema USA. The Abreu Fellows Program at New England Conservatory is an official program of NEC's Preparatory and Continuing Education Schools directed by Dean and Executive Director Leslie Wu Foley.

Now 35 years old, Venezuela's El Sistema is a phenomenally successful program of social action through music education that transforms the lives of at-risk children. It currently provides free music lessons and orchestral playing experience to more than 300,000 children and young adults throughout Venezuela. Its intent is to provide poor children with what Dr. Abreu terms "affluence of the spirit." Through its intense time commitment, rigor, loving concern for each child, and emphasis on the individual player as an essential member of the ensemble, it has rescued many youngsters from the social ills they might otherwise experience. Many graduates continue to play in professional orchestras and many have gone on to college and successful working lives. El Sistema's flagship orchestra, the Símon Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela has become internationally renowned. And the young El Sistema-bred conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, has become a superstar and currently serves as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The new class of Fellows brings together five women and five men, several of whom already have experience working in several North American or international El Sistema programs. They include three violinists, a trumpeter, a composer, a hornist, three conductors, and a singer.

For this third year, program planners are working to deepen the Fellows’ connections within NEC, the Boston community, and the burgeoning El Sistema movement across the United States. Fellows will combine intensive seminar learning with field work at the local, national and international level. The students will be assigned to several different music and education organizations in the Boston area, including the Conservatory Lab Charter School, where Rebecca Levi and David Malek, alumni from the Class of 2009-10, are running an after-school program. Mini-residencies in previous years have also included assignments with OrchKids in Baltimore, KidzNotes in Durham, NC, and Community MusicWorks in Providence, RI.

These community placements will offer on-the-ground experience in teaching, curriculum design, non-profit management, grant writing, strategic planning, and partnerships. Seminars will once again draw on the faculty and staff of NEC as well as nationally-renowned artists and educators to focus on two primary areas of study: education and organizational management. The Fellows will also spend several weeks in Venezuela observing firsthand the El Sistema model. By connecting seminar learning with exposure to the El Sistema movement, the Abreu Fellows will complete their certificate program at NEC with the skills and inspiration to lead the movement forward. 



 

Master of Music  


Master's Degree Concert at UTPA. 

I am very happy to announce that the The University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA) has conferred upon me the Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting. I extend my deepest appreciation to all of my family, professors, and musical colleagues who supported me throughout my graduate studies. A very special thanks to professors Peter Dabrowski, Cathy Ragland, Cynthia Cripps, and Pedro Martinez for their mentorship and advice. 

Schumann Anniversary  

In music there is always something to be perfected, to be made more beautiful. Here, fine tuning a transition for our performance of the Schumann Piano Concerto. Conductor and soloist, at work: 


Bernd Müller and Hernandez-Estrada, November 2010.

Mexico - Bicentenario 2010 

El 18 de septiembre, mil niños pertenecientes a los Núcleos Comunitarios de Aprendizaje Musical (Nucam) del Sistema Nacional de Fomento Musical del Conaculta, ofrecieron conciertos sinfónicos simultáneos en 11 ciudades del país. Con el título Así suenan los Núcleos en el Bicentenario, los niños ocuparon plazas y auditorios de Ensenada y Tijuana en Baja California; la capital de Chihuahua; Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl en el Estado de México; León, Guanajuato; Guadalajara, Jalisco; Cuernavaca, Tepoztlán y Huitzilac en Morelos; Reynosa en Tamaulipas; y Mérida, Yucatán; para ofrecer sendas presentaciones simultáneamente. Aqui las fotografias del Maestro Hernandez-Estrada junto a la Orquesta Infantil-Juvenil NUCAM en Reynosa en el recien inaugurado Parque Cultural Reynosa. 




 

Schubert and The Beatles  


The South Texas Youth Symphony performs Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. 

 
The Youth Symphony joins the Success Through Strings program. 


Dress rehearsal for Maestro Hernandez-Estrada and his young musicians. 

Composing Change  

I recently attended the symposium "Composing Change" which took place May 6-8, 2010 at  the EXPO Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall. The event focused on a global perspective of El Sistema-influenced programs taking root beyond the borders of Venezuela, utilizing the YOLA Expo Center Youth Orchestra Program and Gustavo Dudamel, as case studies. The three-day event featured a visit to the Expo Center, roundtable discussions, invitational rehearsals at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a conversation between Gustavo Dudamel and LA Phil President & CEO Deborah Borda. See the Los Angeles pictures here: 



El Sistema leaders and advocates from Mexico, Venezuela, and the US. 

Under Tiffany's Glow   


Rehearsing for the recital in Chicago. 

I had the honor of performing at the Dame Myra Hess Concert series in Chicago. The concert was held on January 21st at Chicago's beautiful Cultural Center (Preston Bradley Hall). The performance was hosted by Ann Murray, the director of the International Music Foundation and sponsored by Bank of America. The concert was broadcasted on WFMT, Chicago's classical radio station. Here are the program notes I wrote for the recital: 
 
Cesar Guerra-Peixe and Claudio Santoro are two of Brazil’s most influential 20th century composers. The Preludios Tropicais (1979) are a set of seven pieces referencing popular songs, traditions, instruments, and distinct musical styles. The Cantiga de Folia da Reis is a contemplative and festive prelude honoring the Christian Feast of the Epiphany. The Ponteado de Viola is cast as a virtuoso toccata referencing the timbre and action of the viola, a 10-steel-string acoustic guitar used in Brazilian folk music. Santoro’s First of Book of Preludes (twelve in total) is a work of rare beauty and perfection. The three preludes heard today are masterful miniatures suggesting images of stillness and a myriad of colors through sparse musical textures. 
 
Manuel M. Ponce is considered to be one of the most influential Latin American composers of the 20th century. Ponce’s diverse and eclectic musical output embraces styles reminiscent of Schumann’s Romanticism to Debussy’s Impressionism. He is regarded as the father of Mexican musical nationalism. During his youth, Ponce became particularly fascinated by the folk music, idyllic landscape, and festive atmosphere of his native land. As an ethnomusicologist, he began an incessant search to develop and assimilate the popular genre into higher forms of musical expression. In this regard, the German musicologist Otto Mayer-Serra comments, “Ponce belongs to the first artistic generation that consciously worked in love with his country: the popular, legendary, and colonial Mexico…” The Balada Mexicana is one of the composer’s most memorable piano works. A fine example of nationalistic writing, it features two popular themes, (El Durazno and Acuerdate de Mi) in an A-B-A structure. A work of romantic lyricism and virtuosic proportions, the Balada was considered by the composer to be his most accomplished work. Ponce’s Intermezzo (1923), evokes the atmosphere of rural Mexico. The composer’s treatment of parallel thirds and impressionistic harmonies depicts an idyllic pastoral setting. The Intermezzo is masterwork with remarkable unity, evident in its rhythmical and melodic elements. Written in sonata form, the work beholds all the magic of its perfection within a few bars. 
 
Alberto Ginastera's piano compositions span the years from 1937 (Danzas Argentinas, Op. 2) to 1982 (Sonata No. 3). His compositions can be grouped into three periods which the composer himself established. According to Ginastera, the first period, Objective Nationalism, is characterized by literal use of Argentine folk music. The second period, Subjective Nationalism, assimilates twentieth-century compositional techniques and well as rhythms and melodies of his native Argentine music. The third period, Neo-Expressionism, is objective and modern, with no direct idiomatic representations. The Sonata No. 1, Op. 22 belongs to the Ginastera's Subjective Nationalism, in which he was casting his Argentine folk elements in a distinctly modern pianistic style. Fiendishly virtuosic and highly satisfying, it is one of Ginastera's best-known and most frequently performed works for piano. According to the composer’s program notes, the Sonata is cast in four movements, the first one of which is written in the classical sonata form. The opening theme, very primitive, is followed by a second theme full of expressive Iyricism, flexible, pastoral-like. The typical features are steady polytonal elements and highly complex rhythms. The second movement, presto misterioso, is a fleeting, vaporous three-part scherzo. Ginastera uses a twelve-tone senes for the first part and the second one conveys the folk reminiscences of a malambo. The third movement, Adagio, is a three-part lied, while the fourth one, in rondo form with five sections, is reminiscent of the typical toccata writing.

 The Tiffany Dome.

Listen to a recording of  Ponce's Intermezzo here: 

Between the Oslofjord and the forests 


(I took this photograph while riding in one of the boats stationed in the foreground).

I visited in Oslo this week to perform a piano recital celebrating the music of Mexican and Norwegian composers. My heartfelt thanks to the Mexican Embassy authorities, Mexican friends living in Norway, and Robert Rosales of AMENO, who hosted me and helped produced a very successful event. It was a joy to play and to visit in such an extraordinary city, home of the Nobel Peace Prize. Here is a newspaper article in Norwegian: 


Norsk og Meksikansk Klaverkonsert
Med José Luis Hernández-Estrada
 
Den meksikanske pianisten José Luis Hernádez-Estrada (1983), vinner av konkurransen JK Hodges Contemporary Piano Competition 2006, fortsetter å trollbinde sitt publikum og kritikere med sine sofistikerte og energiske tolkninger av sitt repertoar. Den meksikanske pressen beskriver ham som ”en pianist med et intenst musikalsk temperament”. Den tyske avisen Further Narchrichten betrakter ham som en strålende pianist. Han er en ung musiker, men med en dyp forståelse av sitt materiale; siden hans debut (som 10 åring). Med Universitetet i Tamaulipas symfoniorkester har hans karriere så langt brakt ham til konsertsaler i Tyskland, Spania, USA, Puerto Tico og til mange av de større byene i Mexico. Konserten vil inneholde verk av: Desar Guerr-Peixe, L.V. Beethoven, Manuel M. Ponce, Edward Grieg, Alberto Ginastera og Hernandez-Estrada.

And pictures: 


Rehearsal at the Asker Kulturhus


 Playing music by Edward Grieg.