Hilary's Concert Tour in Perú

Hi everyone,

Thanks for visiting this blog! I had such an incredible experience, and wanted to document it with photos, videos, and stories. I kept up the blog when I had time on my trip, and then filled in more when I got home. I really wanted to organize the posts so that it would read like a story from beginning to end. Some of the dates in the blog don't correspond with actual dates, I had to juggle those to organize the posts, but my Perú tour was from March 8 to March 18, 2013. The latter part of the blog is about adventures with Gwen Franz in the touring Festival Entrecuerdas, Chile, October 8 - 22, 2012. Enjoy!

On my way to Lima, Perú!

Here we go again- this time I'm solo, and on my way to an adventure in Perú! I'm very excited, a little nervous, but so far everything has gone quite smoothly. I was able to take my guitar on the first leg of the flight, and I'm hoping that I can do the same on this flight! I'm performing and teaching in the ICPNA XXIV Festival Internacional de Guitarra and playing a concert tour in Southern Perú. I am honored to be sponsored by the US Embassy for this festival and tour, bringing music to areas that don't have as much access and exposure to classical music. All of the concerts are open and free to the public. I am looking forward to more adventures!

Binational Cultural Centers, ICPNA, and the US Embassy in Perú

My trip to Perú has two parts, the Festival Internacional de la Guitarra in Lima, Perú, and a tour of smaller provinces in Southern Perú. The host of the Festival Internacional de la Guitarra is the ICPNA. The ICPNA, the American Embassy in Lima, Perú, and the Binational Cultural Centers in Perú worked together to organize my tour to bring music to the people, to share culture of the world, and to facilitate opportunities for young people and adults to achieve and succeed at their life goals. Here is the mission statement of the ICPNA:

"The Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano is the largest binational Cultural center in Latin America.   It is highly recognized for its contributions towards the development of the community through the teaching of English and Spanish languages for universal understanding, for increasing the awareness of books and reading habits through its library net, and for its varied cultural programs of international caliber, through its galleries and auditoriums.
The ICPNA maintains a solid bond with the international community and is part of the following international organizations:
ABLA Association of Bi-national Centers of Latin America
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TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
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IFLA International Federation of Library Association
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ALA American Library Association
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AMCHAM American Chamber of Commerce of Perú"

I am thrilled to be a part of this larger goal, and to use music as a way to communicate and reach people in ways that they don't have easy access to otherwise, and help build bridges between cultures.

Festival Internacional de Guitarra

I'm here! So happy to be a part of this festival! Later today I start my tour of Southern Perú. I am excited to bring music to these smaller provinces, to meet the people, and see the country! Here is a video that ICPNA and the US Embassy put together to support the tour. The music is excerpts from Prelude #1 by Villa Lobos.

Ballad Stories, ICPNA XXIV Festival de la Guitarra, Miraflores, Lima, Perú

Here is an excerpt of my concert at the XXIV Festival de la Guitarra in Miraflores, Lima, Perú.
It is a couple of movements of Ballad Stories by Milan Tesar.

Festival Internacional de Guitarra 2013-ICPNA Miraflores, Lima, Perú

This is a compilation of the music of all the players in the XXIV ICPNA Guitar Festival.

Alberto and Gilson

Alberto Cumplido from Chile is one of the performers in the festival! Alberto is the director of Festival Entrecuerdas that Gwen and I performed in a tour of Chile last October, and the first instigator of these fantastic adventures for us. I was so happy to hear that he would be here too. He is a great guitarist who plays with a lot of feeling, and a wonderful composer as well. This was my first trip abroad without family or friends, and it's so nice to see a familiar face in a foreign land. It's sort of like going to camp and knowing at least one other kid. Here is Alberto and Gilson Antunes, a wonderful performer and great person from Brazil. Gilson is also good friends with Elodie, my friend from the Festival Entrecuerdas!

André and Daniel

Daniel Morgade is from Uruguay and Perú, and André Madeira is from Portugal. Everyone here is an amazing player, with their own style. Very nice people too, very friendly and supportive of each other. Guitarists often specialize in solo literature, and spend many, many hours practicing by themselves, so guitar festivals are great ways to meet each other, play together, support one another, and have camaraderie.

Ricardo and Oscar

There were ten international guitarists in the Festival. I was the only one from the US (known as EEUU) Sebastién was from Canada, and the other guitarists were from Spanish speaking countries (many opportunities to practice Spanish!) Each night two international guitarists share a concert night, and one of the guitar students plays a 15 minute opening set. I shared my concert night with Ricardo Barreda from Perú, and the student (joven valor) was Jean Carlo Manrique. Oscar Peñafiel, from Bolivia, is another fantastic guitarist performing here!

Enrique and Freddy

Enrique Gule, from Argentina, and Freddy Perez Velazco, from Mexico and Cuba, are two more guitarists in the festival. They both are great guitarists who also have strong backgrounds in traditional music from their countries. At the party after the final concert, they played beautiful traditional folk songs and everyone sang (well almost everyone, yours truly didn't know any of the songs) . It reminded me of when Patrice and I would look for Brazilian songs on YouTube and we would find videos of people together in a living room in Brazil, singing and playing together. I suddenly realized that I was now inside one of those videos, so I had to take out my phone and film it.

Press

ICPNA gave us packets including all the press clippings.

Master Classes

Every day two international guitarists teach master classes to young adult students (high school, college age). They are in the teacher's language, and if that language is not Spanish, there is an interpreter. My first student, a nice young man named Diego, played Variations on a theme by Mozart by Fernando Sor. For my guitar student families, that is the same piece that William played at our winter recital! I love that we can share music across cultures around the world.

Ricardo Barreda teaching a master class at ICPNA, Lima, Perú

La Comida

La comida estaba muy deliciosa! The food was very delicious! There is an issue with the tap water though, so I was pretty careful not to get sick. I refrained from tap water, ice, uncooked vegetables or unpeeled fruit, juice, basically anything that would have touched the water. It felt strange to order  "ningunas verduras frescas  por favor" ( no fresh vegetables please) and in the middle of the hot South American desert, a pitcher of frozen lemonade looked sooooo good, but I couldn't risk getting sick before my concerts. Nonetheless, there was a lot of cooked food to choose from that was very good, and lots of fresh seafood on the coast! They had this yellow colored soda called Inca Kola that tasted (really) like bubble gum, not quite my cup of tea, but very popular. By the way, Perú had elections during my stay, and it is against the law for establishments to sell alcohol the day before elections, to help keep everyone lucid for their decisions.

Inca Kola

Postre

photo by Mel Clou

La Única Chica

There were ten international guitarists and ten student guitarists in the festival. I was the only female. There are more male professional guitarists than female, so this is a more likely situation than the "chicafest" we had in Festival Entrecuerdas in Chile. One nice thing is that someone always offered to carry my stuff, including my guitar in its huge heavy flight case. Women's Lib aside, I was always happy to take them up on the offer!

XXIV Festival Internacional de Guitarra!

En Verdad..

..la única chica

La familia de Sebastién

Sebastién, another performer on the festival, is from Quebec Canada. He brought his whole family to the festival, and after it's over they are going to Machu Picchu. His family was such a bright light every day (and some women companions!) Between them they spoke French, English, and Spanish, so breakfast was always a trilingual fiesta!

Lunch with the American Embassy

Great lunch today with the staff of the American Embassy, as well as two other Americans, a violin and piano duo, who are touring Perú as well. Representatives from the American Embassy came to my concert last night and they are very enthusiastic about my tour! They liked that I spoke to the audience (using all of my level 3A Pimsleur Spanish :) and they said that if I wanted to go more into detail, Camilo, who will be accompanying me on the tour, could help with translations. I love that idea, and I worked on the notes with Camilo. Where I am going, the audience will not have as much experience with classical music, and this will be another way to connect and share music with the people of Perú.

Mangos Restaurant, Miraflores

Miraflores is very beautiful seaside community. It feels and looks like vacation. My lunch with the staff of the US Embassy was in a beautiful restaurant, Mangos, outside on the water. We had the buffet, so there was a lot of different food to chose from, including some national specialties, like Lomo Saltado, which is a very tasty stir fry. They also had a huge selection of desserts, some with fruit that we don't have in the US. Of course, for Emma, I had to try Dulce de Tres Leches (Tres Leches cake). I know that Emma and Andrew are waiting for me to try Cuyo (guinea pig) which is a specialty in Southern Peru. They think that it should come with a little wheel and a hidden piece of cheese.

Miraflores, Lima, Perú

My Tour of Southern Perú

My tour starts today! I will be playing my program in Tacna and Ilo, two small provinces (around 200,000 pop.) I am flying to Tacna tonight, with Camilo from the US Embassy, who will accompany me throughout the tour, and make sure everything goes smoothly. Sort of like a bilingual tour/road manager (Emma and Andrew like to refer to him as my "bodyguard"). I am so grateful that he will be there, and it will be so helpful to have someone there to take care of all the details, while I focus on the music. I probably would not do this tour without someone accompanying me. I'm not quite brave enough to navigate remote parts of South America alone. OK, considering how many times I have gotten lost trying to take Emma to a friend's house, I could probably use a road manager to go to Bellevue, but that's another story.

Camilo

Camilo Caballero from the US Embassy in Perú accompanied me on the tour, and he was invaluable in terms of taking care of every little detail to make sure that everything ran smoothly. All I had to focus on was preparing for my concerts, and then enjoy the travel and the experience of a new country and new culture. Camilo is passionate about his international studies and his work with the Embassy to help improve global society. I know that he will do great, important work in this world. Plus, he helped me with Spanish, he was very patient when I was a little queasy on the Pan American Highway, and he always carried my stuff! I know, everyone should have a Camilo in their life, at least for a little while.

Pan American Highway

We took the Pan American Highway from Tacna to Ilo. It was amazingly beautiful. If you looked out the window on one side, there was the desert, and the other side was the ocean. I did learn that if you continually looked left to right on the curvy road that you will get dizzy and carsick, but air conditioning and looking straight ahead helped. It was truly wondrous landscape.

The view in Ilo

The view from my hotel window in Ilo, Perú:

More views in Ilo

Casa de Cultura, Ilo, Perú

What an amazing experience! Packed house (around 250 people) at Casa de la Cultura, Ilo, Perú last night, including many young students. After the concert, everyone wanted photos! After the photos I had an interview with a local TV station, along with a couple of students from the binational center. I'm so thrilled to share music here!

Diana and Yeffrey

Diana Campos Pérez and Yeffrey Obando Rodriguez were our contacts for the concert at Ilo, and like Leddy and Gretha in Tacna, were extremely dedicated to their work with the students at the binational center. There were all so warm and welcoming, and so excited to offer this concert on their beautiful coastal city. The buzz of excitement was palpable, the room was packed, and the best part was meeting everyone after the concert! These concerts were so well organized and ran so smoothly. I really appreciate the hard work that went into all the details.