A visit to a junior conservatory

The first time I attended the Festival Leo Brouwer (2011) many things struck me as unusual.  Some of them I now take for granted: that audiences will be diverse in terms of age, race, and socioeconomic status; that the musicians themselves will be younger and much less male and white than their counterparts in the US.  Other things which struck me then still have resonance - one of the chief of these has to do with musical education in Cuba.  The Havana Chamber Orchestra is a young group; the oldest player is mid-30s.  I did the arithmetic and found that these young musicians were just entering school at the start of the Special Period - that period when Cuba lost its trading partners with the end of the Soviet bloque and when the US blockade was tightened to try to force Cuba to capitulate.  The early 90s were terrible in Cuba - without adequate fuel, transportation, electricity, inadequate food, and much very genuine suffering which was spread out fairly equitably so that no one actually starved to death and all adults lost weight. (I have heard everywhere that adults went to bed hungry so that the kids could eat.)  In the midst of this, some talented children were recognized, their talents nurtured and brought to the point of glorious professionalism that we hear now.

What kind of society is it that, in the midst of  a severe economic crisis, finds the will and resources to care for art music and its transmission through the generations?  Clearly one which actually believes that to be educated and cultured is to be free - a Jose Marti saying one sees here often.  Clearly one that values its artists as essential, not decorative, and not superfluous in times of crisis.  I contrast this to the US where in the majority of school districts free public arts education is either going or already gone.  I wish we had our priorities as straight.

I have visited the top level conservatory in Havana (the Instituto Superior de Arte) and if you set aside "little things" like gender and race, they are much like upper level US conservatories.  This year I had the chance to visit one of the many secondary school level conservatories - the Amadeo Roldan - and it was an unusual experience.  The guitar class I visited was having its first rehearsal of a work in 4 parts, the Leo Brouwer Toccata. There were 18 students and a teacher, the young guitarist Joe Ott Pons, just starting an international performance career.  The chairs were in bad condition, there weren't enough music stands so they pulled up tables in front of rows of students to hold the sheet music, the walls are not at all sound-resistant so loud invading brass and other noise is heard.  The students use strings until they break - a very generous donation by Strings By Mail allowed each student to have a new set after this visit.  Then - and this often happens in every country - there were serious errors in the sheet music that had to be corrected for 4 different parts.  The noise level was enormous and I was thinking that this was not fun and that I didn't see how any serious work could get done in this atmosphere.  Finally they were ready - first rehearsal, remember, and with many corrected bits that they would have to sight-read.  I expected nothing but in fact they produced an astonishingly good first run-through.  They seemed unaffected by the noise and chaos which were so distressing me; they had fierce concentration on the music and seemed undistractable. Furthermore, the professor, far from being distressed by the adverse conditions not only was able to concentrate but spoke afterward of how much he enjoyed teaching.  It did make me think that we US guitarists are rather sensitive and hot-house by comparison.  Prof. Ott said that after learning guitar in this system he is completely unbothered in concert by noise and movement and I have no trouble believing this.

So - the differences are: it's free, it's public and available to any child with interest and ability.  Guitar students learn from the beginning to work in guitar orchestras and other instrument ensembles, to sight-read and to follow a conductor, just like other music students.  The physical conditions are those of a poor country - crowded, noisy, broken, used up - but the vitality and enthusiasm and ability are enormous.  The gender and race distribution is more equitable.  Of 18 students 10 were boys and 8 girls.  I didn't try to count by race because race in Cuba is a spectrum rather than a division and it is not always clear to me who is what.  Prof. Ott was rather shocked when I told him that guitar instruction in the US for students ages 13-16 is generally only available to those whose parents can pay for private lessons.  What is a luxury and what is a necessity?  Here music is necessary. In fact Leo Brouwer himself said that if we remained without music for 48 consecutive hours, he believes there would be a world-wide catastrophe.  I believe this too.

Si nos quedáramos sin música cuarenta y ocho horas, absolutamente cuarenta y ocho horas seguidas, creo que podría haber una catástrofe mundial.

"Of course I've learned my part, Profe."

Practicing in the hall
(Students get their secondary school uniforms when they first start
school, then proceed to grow out of them.  Fortunately the girls
wear skorts, not skirts, because they

get quite high and tight.)

Music stands are in short supply.

There's no room and no footstools.
Students change guitar position as they advance.

The pleasure of getting it right.

Somehow it all works out. 

Trying to hear in a noisy environment

Each of 4 parts had to be corrected.  "How much would the right notes cost?"

Thanks, Strings By Mail.  You're great!

Private lesson

The professor is Joe Ott Pons

The student is Lazaro E Garcia Roman, age 15.

Thank you, Strings by Mail, for your generous donation.

A broken string made the Strings by Mail donation very timely for this student.

Leo Brouwer Music Festival

Writing about the Leo Brouwer Music Festival - it clings to the name chamber music festival but is much broader than that - is hard precisely because it is so large and so eclectic that no short description seems possible.  A perfect connection, combination, union of intelligent music is the official description. Genre-bender Leo Brouwer sees not only the connections between many types of music - everything first-rate of its kind and nothing trite or over-exposed - but between music and the other arts.  The festival includes concerts, plastic art exhibits, film, and dance, but mostly concerts.

Every year, and this is my third Festival, (the Festival itself is 5 years old), I get my mind and my tastes expanded a bit.  Last year a standout concert for me was Sytse Buwalda, the male contralto.  But I thought I didn't even like countertenors.  A huge unexpected pleasure this year was Il Dilirio Fantastico, a French early music group, especially Virginie Botty on recorder, (that boring instrument, I had felt - I used to play it.)

The biggest thing for me this year was unexpected and very moving - I heard Leo Brouwer play guitar.  He came out with a guitar in hand for the last piece on the Pablo Milanés half of the  concert Amor  de Ciudad Grande, played an introduction to the piece that included one of the estudios sencillos, and accompanied the song.  Wild rumor ran through the hall - he'd had an operation and his hand was now OK, he would resume playing in public.  Unfortunately, this was false - he played with thumb and 2 fingers as a tribute to friendship and to José Martí.  Not at all incidentally, the two pieces by Brouwer which opened this concert - Es el amor que se ve, written in 1972 for voice, flute, violin, cello, piano, guitar and vibraphone; and Elegías Martianas written in 2009 for flute and piano - were stunning. This festival will be a revelation for those who think of  Brouwer as a "guitar composer."   He is that, also, but  most of his work is for other instruments.

So what else did I hear?

            An organ concert starting with a piece by Arnolt Schlick (15th C.) and ending with Bach and Vivaldi.  A concert by Paco de Lucía and his group.  A concert that sandwiched works by Vivaldi with Minimalist works, including Steve Reich, Michael Torke, Brouwer, John Adams, Terry Riley - I got to hear "In C" live.  A concert with chamber music by and about Verdi and Wagner.  A concert with music by Brazilian composers - I was expecting the usual charming light-weight pieces and I was quite surprised: of course Brazil has composers who are part of their culture but not tied to folkloric music.  Did I expect that Villa Lobos would be an isolated artist? 
            A concert of choral music by Cuban composers, and later the same day a concert of Brouwer works interpreted as flamenco.  A concert dedicated to Benjamin Britten, with  his Green Broom and The Evening Primrose for chorus, and the Sonata Op 60 for cello and piano - stunning-, and works by Hindemith (The Sonatina Canonica for 2 flutes Op 31, which was like being in a magic forest in a dream with the best possible sounding birds in the world), Brouwer, Alvarez, and Popper, plus Arvo Part's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten.  This concert featured Douglas Vistel on cello, who was so good it was startling.  Cello, like choral music and guitar, seems to be a Cuban strength.  Young Cuban cellist Alejandro Martinez is very very good indeed and some day I will be proud to say "I knew him when..."  Vistel, with his wife Almuth Krauber on piano, is the amazing Berlin-based Duo Cello Capriccioso - hear them if you possibly can.

            The concert Sonatas, Concertos y Fantasias, in the beautiful old church San Francisco de Asís, with Scarlatti, Mudarra, Sanz, de Murzia - and Brouwer - played on baroque guitar, lute and ...electric guitar... (I admit this latter didn't work for me.  It didn't work for the church's electrical system either, and somehow caused the organ of Il Dilirio Fantastico to burn-out something.  A longer than planned intermission occurred while Vincent Bernhardt tuned the harpsichord so that the concert could proceed.)  The second half was all Vivaldi Concerti and never needed to end, really.  Yes, there's a lot more to Vivaldi than Four Seasons.  A Lecuona concert.  A flamenco concert with a flamenco purist from a long tradition, Carlos Piñana (unlike fusion players like Tacoronte and, yes, de Lucía). A Benny Moré tribute concert.  There were also mini-concerts associated with the conferences, and some miscellaneous which was enjoyable, and a lot of movies and jam sessions which I missed but which sounded as if they were interesting and fun.  I'm tired of typing, though, and this is long enough.

            There are some things you can count on at the Leo Brouwer Chamber Music Festival.  You will hear music played by excellent artists, both Cuban and international, in well thought out programs.  You will not hear any warhorses, and will have the opportunity to expand your knowledge and taste.  You will hear lots of Brouwer, almost all of it works you were not familiar with.  You will see lots of Brouwer, too; this is truly his festival and his vitality and intensity as a conductor and as a person will impress you.  As the festival grows, he has become increasing busy, but he's very gracious and you'll have time for a brief chat or two.  It will be  great fun and just a tiny bit over the top.  You will not have time for everything.  Something unexpected will happen that will make you feel happy and fortunate.

footnote: El hombre escapa'o

In one of the conferences, José Martí was quoted to the effect that "La música es el hombre escapado de si mismo."  Later that night, after the concert, I got a ride home (you stand on the right street, stick out your hand, a jitney cab stops or sometimes someone who's driving the work-truck home and just wants to make the 10 pesos - this was the latter.)  Where was I coming home from?  A Leo Brouwer Festival concert.  " Leo Brouwer? Este hombre es escapa'o!" Cuban slang for totally awesome, involved heart and soul.  I was struck by the coincidence, but not by the fact that a random person driving home has an opinion about the country's leading composer.  That's just Cuba.

Maestro Brouwer

This is the organizing genius who puts together this festival - Musicologist Isabelle Hernandez
It must require the combined talents of a caterpillar tractor, a ballet dancer, a senior diplomat, and, Oh Yes, a musicologist.
(She's married to Leo.)

After a chamber music concert in the beautiful Basilica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asis, the audience danced through the streets behinds sanqueros on stilts to Casa de Africa for another concert.  

If there are few concert pictures here, it's because my camera just wasn't up to the challenge of movement in darkness.

with Pedro Chamorro and one of the organizers

Edin Karamazov, Sytse Buwalda, and Leo Brouwer

with Eusebio Leal, historiador de la ciudad, responsible for much of the restoration of Old Havana

A concert in the park

Conferences were held in the Antigua Casino Español, and students,
as well as other members of the public were invited.

with Saskia Spinder

 Sytse Buwalda, Dutch contralto

Joe Ott Pons, guitarist.
He won the Premio Espiral Eterna for musicians in 2012

Artists from Grupo Giganteria acted as auxiliary ushers

Costa Rican composer Marvin Camacho performing his own work.

Cellist Alejandro Martinez and Percussionist Eilyn Marquetti Gonzalez
creating the first performance of a work by Costa Rican composer Eddie Mora

Cellist Alejandro Martinez
won the Espiral Eterna musicians prize in 2011

ofibrouwer@cubarte.cult.cu
Berta Rojas and Bobby McFerrin, among others, will be at the 6th annual Leo Brouwer Chamber Music Festival
September 27 to October 12 2014

The organizers, hard at work, but not showing any sweat.