CUWinds Costa Rica

 Thriving communities are noisy and full of life.  Pavas, on the outskirts of San Jose, is strangely quiet. Shops are shuttered, traffic is sparse, and the inhabitants seem to be living behind chain link fences.

 The community center at Pavas advertises itself as the location for funeral parties, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and Sweet 16 parties. Four days a week, this plain but tidy concrete building is home to a new SINEM school.

The CU Winds started their week by teaching day-long master classes and demonstrating their playing technique for a workshop led by Cindi for aspiring conductors. Eight future conductors submitted to a critique and coaching.

 The wind ensemble’s job was to follow the student conductors. That’s not always as easy as it may seem. Some conductors seemed to favor a strong martial style while others were more squishy, vague and unsure. Cindi hopped in frequently, demonstrating technique, posture, phrasing – always reminding the conductors that they are in charge of translating, interpreting, and transmitting the music from the musicians to the audience.  One candidate commented during class that in Costa Rica, orchestras don’t tend to follow conductors very closely. There is no strong conducting tradition and so conductors tend to come from musician ranks – and other musicians don’t listen to them.

Pablo, director of the school, said he hoped that with stronger training, conductors can teach and lead young musicians to perform in a more disciplined way.

After two hours of playing, the CU Winds ate a quick snack, lead master classes to students, and then set up to perform.

As dusk enveloped the neighborhood, families came out to the community center and sat in folding chairs with their kids in their lap. The group opened with West Side Story (surprisingly, few audience members in Costa Rica seem familiar with this American classic), moved into “Gum-suckers”  (an Australian favorite), played the crowd favorite “The Wiz” and entertained the audience with their self-choreographed Offenbach.

At one point, I looked out toward the parking lot and saw four little boys with their noses literally pressed to the window, transfixed by the percussion section.

After the concert, we all rode the long ride back to our hotel over now familiar narrow winding switchbacks. We ate a buffet dinner at the hotel and then most in the group went to bed early. Only a few of us stayed up late, watching bad American television with Spanish subtitles and emailing our loved ones from the wireless station at the hotel’s reception area.

We hear the weather home in Ithaca is seasonably unreasonable and savored reports that the temperature got down to zero and stayed there.

It’s already hard to imagine that just last week our sweaters, down jackets and ear-covering headgear was so necessary. Now these things just crowd the bottom of our suitcases, underneath the tangle of T-shirts and flip flops.

 We don’t mean to rub our Ithacan friends and familys’ noses in snow, but doing so much hard work has its compensations, even beyond the satisfaction of giving and making great music. If there is a little sunburn involved, then so be it.

 Amy Dickinson

January 11, 2010

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