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PULLING AT THE HEARTSTRINGS

Pablo Sáinz Villegas appears with the Oregon Symphony October 25–27, 2014

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By Samantha Edington

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When a six-year-old Pablo Sáinz Villegas saw renowned guitarist Andrés Segovia play on TV, he was captivated by the music’s emotional power. And now, when he closes his eyes and strums his guitar, Villegas is doing more than producing beautiful sounds—he’s reliving the emotions of what he’s playing. He compares it to jumping into a river of music and letting it carry him wherever it goes as he says, “I like to be infused in it.” After jumping into this musical river, he has swept through more than 30 countries, winning over audiences and symphonies with his charismatic stage presence while scooping up numerous awards along the way.

Eager to share music’s power to inspire and connect people of different social and economic situations, Villegas founded his outreach program, The Music Without Borders Legacy, in 2007. Through it, he visits schools to play classical music to children and share related stories that instill positive values because “they are going to absorb beauty and quality if you offer them that.” Another priority for Villegas is “working a lot to really create more opportunity around the guitar and trying to develop all that culture around it.” He has been refocusing the spotlight on the guitar, attempting to enrich the repertoire and carve out a more prominent role for it on the symphonic stage. As the first guitarist to win Spain’s highest musical honor, “El Ojo Crítico,” he’s not only doing that, but he is also reinforcing Spain’s claim to fame for producing the best classical guitarists in the world.

InSymphony: This is your first time performing with the Oregon Symphony. What are you looking forward to?PSV: I’m looking for a great musical experience with a great maestro, Carlos Kalmar; and he’s also a good friend. We connected musically right from the first moment, and he inspired me so much—his musicality, his persona, his humanity, his emotions, his technique. He invited me to be part of the Oregon Symphony concert series, and I was really pleased. I’m looking to share where I am from and the instrument that is so linked to my culture.

InSymphony: When you play, you make it look simple. What kind of discipline does it take to make it look so easy?PSV: I started playing the guitar when I was six years old, after watching a video of Andrés Segovia on TV, and I was always very inspired by the guitar. It requires a lot of discipline and passion, determination, being very demanding with the music you are playing, being very demanding with the instrument and the technique, and being very demanding with what you are as a human being. In the end, it’s about communicating through emotions.

When you play an instrument, the technique is the base of

a gigantic pyramid, and if you don’t have that, you don’t have anything. But then you need the musicality linked to the technical needs of the music and the instrument, and then once you have the technical, the musicality, you need the emotions, which is going to be the top of the pyramid. So, you really need to create a balance between these three elements to connect to the people and to move them and inspire them, and to make music something transcendent and a magical experience. I think that’s the power of music: the ability to heal people, to heal emotional grief, to inspire people, to make them feel better and happy.

InSymphony: Sharing music is very important to you. What can you tell us about your organization, The Music Without Borders Legacy? PSV: As a musician, I feel a responsibility to share music with everybody and to inspire [them]. So, I think we have a social responsibility to fulfill with people who don’t have access to art or to classical music in particular. I started this project seven years ago, working with the International Community Foundation, and decided to play for all these high-risk kids in schools and institutions

HEARTSTRINGSPABLO SÁINZ VILLEGAS SHARES THE SOUL AND HUMANITY WITHIN MUSIC.

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{ }Q & A

on both sides of the border of Mexico and the United States, Tijuana and San Diego. I talk to them, and I tell them stories with values, and those stories with values are related to pieces I’ve played for them. So I create an image—and an image is very powerful, much more powerful than words—and that image is totally linked to the music, and the music fills those images. The goal of the project, The Music Without Borders Legacy, is…not to create professional musicians, but to inspire all those kids to be responsible for their own decisions in life and transmit these values.

InSymphony: When you play, what kind of images do you see? PSV: When I close my eyes, I don’t recreate defined, concrete images; it’s more an abstract connection with the music I’m playing. My approach to music is to become the music I’m playing, trying to really be part of that sensation, that emotion that I’m trying to transmit.

I explain it with a metaphor: It’s like jumping into a river, and then, from the first note, you are inside the river—I

like to be infused in it. And then just the music running along is bringing you to different places. It is so important to let yourself go with that flow. What I try to do when I’m on the stage is invite the people to participate [in] having that journey and that emotion through music. That’s my way to communicate with them.

InSymphony: You’ll be playing Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo. What should we know about it? PSV: The first movement is a bulería [flamenco rhythm]. Then the second movement is this beautiful adagio. Rodrigo and his wife had a miscarriage. For both of them, it was a very dramatic moment of their lives, and Rodrigo was composing this concerto, so it’s an homage to his lost child. During this movement, it’s a lament, it’s a crying, it’s a conversation with God, asking him, “Why did you take my son away?” And after that, he makes peace with God and with himself; there is this beautiful, peaceful moment when it’s accepting the death of his son. So, it’s a beautiful, dramatic piece, and it’s part of where I am as a human

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being. I identify because it’s so dramatic, and I’ve played it so many times. I try to be part of the pain of the composer. And every time I play it, it’s a revelation for me. I think of it as part of myself already. And then the third movement is the happy movement to balance this dramatic moment. It’s inspired in Spanish music, but instead of flamenco, it’s inspired in the folk music. The folk music in Spain is not so dramatic as the flamenco is, and dancers who dance folk music jump into the air. So, there are these two universal forces, the first movement going down, and the third movement going up. That balance, that middle movement, which is so dramatic, and the third movement is this very gallant, I could say caballeresque [chivalrous], movement and rhythm that balances the other two very well.

Portland ColumbiaSymPhony orCheStra

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French ConnectionsSeptember 19 & 21

BERLIOZ: Roman Carnival Overture

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RAVEL: Piano Concerto in G

MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition

Anna Polonsky, pianoSteven Byess

“Polonsky’s playing is extraordinary—elegant, intelligent, and acutely sensitive ... her warm legato hints at a string player’s sensibility ... ”

— The Oregonian