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What was your impression of PMF when you passed the audition and attended the event as an Academy member, and what do you remember the most about your time at PMF?
The Pacific Music Festival (PMF) is the best summer program for young aspiring professional musicians out there. Everyone yearns to be part of it someday, and we all work really hard to send a good audition tape. I couldn’t have been happier and more excited about the news I got back in 2016. “Congratulations!” That’s the word that started it all for me. So many thoughts going through my mind at that moment, thoughts I can’t describe because there were, as I previously stated, many!
That summer will remain in my mind and heart forever! The biggest impression that I got from PMF was to get to know many of the musical heroes of all time; heroes that play in the best orchestras in the world, and that is precisely something it’s hard to believe until you are right in front them, or sharing the stage of a world-class concert hall with all of them at the same time. That’s priceless, humbling and immensely motivating. I am from Costa Rica, and these kind of opportunities were far beyond my possibilities at that time, but if I had to tell why I got all the way where I am today, it’s because of the perseverance that was inculcated in myself from all the people who were there always with me.
Being an Academy member of PMF 2016 is one of my top 3 accomplishments so far (I only say 3 because I’m extremely confident there are more to come like this one). I learned about new styles of playing, new possibilities, new things I could try to shape my artistry, and that would always be there with me wherever I went with the most beautiful message, the message of music. It was an eye-opening experience, a summer of growth both musical and personal, and that’s the impression I still preserve as if it was yesterday.
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30 years after the founding of PMF in 1990, there are now around 3,500 alumni worldwide. What impact does PMF have on your current musical life?
The current music scene is the result of many years of experimenting with the sound textures, with all the different styles, and mainly, the adaptation to a whole new era. The music world had the privilege and marvelous opportunity to witness one of the pioneers of making music more accessible to everyone, and his name was Leonard Bernstein. He was a genius in many ways, and he was able to dream and see beyond what any other person related to music could see. He clearly had a vision and a perfect way to achieve it. One of those projects that “Lenny” had was to create a music festival in order to teach and educate the younger generation so that they could take charge of keeping the legacy as the years passed. That legacy and vision is still here amongst us, and it would also be pertinent to add “inside” us, as well.
The impact that PMF had on my professional life was that I became incredibly attracted to this desire to give my absolute best while making music.
Making music with people from all over the world, altogether in the same place, going for the same goal of giving the best concert of our lives, because being there meant so much. When you realize that this festival has been standing strong for 30 years, that 3500 lives have been shaped forever and that this legacy remains vibrant, and at the same time is being reflected in our playing, in our beloved orchestras and elsewhere, it gives me hope that we’re making the world a better place, with no boundaries, no differences, no regimes… the goal is to make music accessible to everyone, and that’s what Maestro Lenny taught us through his life. The most important impact is the responsibility we have as artists and citizens of the world, as Lenny put it, “to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
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PMF will continue to foster young musicians and offer the inspirational power of music to a broad, global audience, passing on founder Leonard Bernstein’s vision, contributing to the classical music culture of the world, and thereby to world peace. What kind of festival would you like to see it become?
PMF is one of the best music festivals for young aspiring professional musicians, and we not only get the best coaching from a world-class faculty, but also close encounters with many people from all over the world. PMF helped me to broaden my expectations, and with that to become a better citizen of the world, both musically and personally. I would love to see PMF keep this legacy of bringing people together from different parts of the globe in order to make music for one purpose: making the world a better place!
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Other interests
Going for walks around the city, mountain biking, and coffee-shop hunting!
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Hugo Valverde, horn
See Hugo Valverde’s bio online here.
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