Question: Ollin Yoliztly is one of the most important music schools in Mexico. What was the condition of Ollin Yoliztli upon your arrival?
Answer: Music education in Mexico unfortunately faces an enormous number of challenges, starting with the lack of resources allocated to the operation of schools. A key aim throughout my entire career as a music educator is to advocate for students and organizations that support the development of the arts and music. It is incredibly important that the next generation of musicians, conductors, and artists have access to the necessary mentorship and education that I have relied on so heavily throughout my career.
I have been fortunate to gain a comprehensive and supportive education throughout my career. In particular, I was selected into the prestigious Doctoral of Music Arts program at Texas Tech University, where I specialized my studies on Orchestral Conducting. In recognition of my unique contributions to the program, and my esteemed career as a leading conductor and music educator, I was awarded with the Helen DeVitt Jones Graduate Fellowship in recognition of my critical work.
Prior to my doctorate program I have also received a Master of Direction of Educational Institutions from Universidad Anáhuac, and a Bachelor of Music in Orchestra Conducting with a Honorific Mention from Escuela de Música Vida y Movimiento. The knowledge and skill set that I have developed as a music educator and conductor are rooted in this solid educational foundation. My aspiration is to continue this legacy for the next generation of students.
Question: At the Life and Movement Music School (Escuela de Música Vida y Movimiento, EMVM) you held several positions. What were these?
Answer: In the case of the EMVM, I was first a full-time academic, then Deputy Director and then Director. Then I moved to being Academic Vicerector of the Ollin Yoliztli Cultural Center (CCOY), which governs not only the EMVM, but the other schools of the CCOY, namely: School of Initiation to Music and Dance, School of Dance of Mexico City, School of Rock to the Word, School of Classical Dance, School of Contemporary Dance and the Typical Orchestra of Mexico City, in addition to the Youth Orchestras and Choirs of Mexico City Program. In total there were three thousand students and about three hundred academics.
Some of my key impacts throughout my tenure with the organization revolved around addressing and improving the educational infrastructure of the organization and its curriculum. As the area of music education is unfortunately often overlooked or underfunded, it was critical for me to negotiate and speak with the leading representatives in the government to address these issues head on.
A key improvement, for example, was the purchase of eight electronic pianos that still operate today in the EMVM. This decision, which was as a result of my work, and benefitted two of the most important classes at the EMVM, the complementary piano class and the ear training or Solfeggio classes.
This Study Plan did not have the Recognition of Official Validity of Studies (REVOE) at the time I arrived at the subdirectorate of the EMVM. This REVOE is issued by the federal Ministry of Public Education in Mexico and allows educational centers to issue bachelor’s degrees valid at any university in the world. The Curriculum had to be modified and updated to achieve this REVOE, which was one of the great pending issues of the EMVM in its almost 25 years of existence.
Achieving this document was as important for the academic and administrative life of the school, as was my own success in imposing a curriculum in the area of Solfeggio that included the study of the music of central Europe in the 19th century, in addition to \music after 1920, within non-tonal languages, which until the moment I entered the EMVM, were not studied under any circumstances. This improvement and expansion of the curriculum was an important step to developing the school into the leading music institution it is today.
Unfortunately, when I arrived at the EMVM, the curriculum only recognized the importance of the music of the period between Bach and Debussy and left aside the musical expressions after the First World War and did not give it the minimum pay attention to Jazz, Rock or ethnic music from any of the continents. The expansion of the bibliography used for auditory training classes at the EMVM was due to my proposals and the decisions that I made when purchasing books and sheet music, which allowed us to obtain books as important as the texts of Berkowitz and Adler, to name just a few.
Question: What was the CCOY Library like when you arrived?
Answer: At the beginning of my tenure, the CCOY library needed immediate attention to improve the availability of materials and books to students and faculty alike. The CCOY library was nothing more than a huge collection of photocopies. Musical education through computers was also something totally unthinkable in the EMVM at the time I became deputy director.
It was thanks to the different agreements I reached with the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Mexico City and the countless meetings I had with the person in charge of administration of this same Ministry, that the purchase of 26 Apple computers and a server was authorized, along with a central server in which the audio files of the different record collections that had been donated over the years to the library of the CCOY were downloaded.
This same library of the CCOY was improved by the federal and local funds that I managed to obtain in the years 2003 to 2005, for the purchase of hundreds of records and books.
In these same budget negotiation processes, I managed to purchase a recording studio for the CCOY, that was the first of it’s kind in the area. Even now, more than 15 years after I left that position, it remains as a key place for students, faculty, and general public to create and develop music, to record the presentations and record auditions.
The CCOY Book Club was also founded during my tenure as Deputy Director of the Center, and more than half of the books that today are available for loan to the community of the neighborhoods near Ollin Yolliztli, came from a donation that I personally obtained. Although there are already other donations from the Ministry of Culture itself, the beginning of that Book Club is due to my work to ensure it’s administrative existence and the availability of books.
