Peru

The 26th International Suzuki Festival and 5th Latin American Suzuki Teachers’ Conference were held in Lima, Peru, in January 2011. More than 1500 people attended these events with participants traveling from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Scotland, Switzerland, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, the United States and from all over Peru.

Many thanks to our SAA Teacher Trainers: David Evenchick, Doris Koppelman, Mary McCarthy, Marilyn O’Boyle, Fernando Piñero, Mary Lou Roberts, Shinobu Saito, Ann Montzka Smelser and Kelly Williamson. In addition to Suzuki courses, workshops for teachers in Dalcroze and Kodaly were offered by Iramar Rodriques from Switzerland and Lydia Mills from California. For David and Ann it was their first time in Latin America.

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X National Workshop, Iquitos May 10-15

Iquitos is a city in the Amazon jungle. It is accessible only by plane or by river. This was the first Suzuki event ever held in the jungle region of Peru.

Everything began in July 2009 in California, when Gretchen Klein, a participant in the Holy Names University Teacher Training Institute expressed interest in helping the Suzuki program in Peru. She was particularly interested in Iquitos as she had been there. Gretchen made a donation to our Latin American Scholarship Fund, earmarking it for a participant from the jungle city of Iquitos.

Thanks to an agreement between…

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Fernando Formigo and flute group from Patagonia, Argentina in front of a billboard advertising their public concert in Asuncion, Paraguay

The excellent quality and affordability of Di Zhao flutes have made dreams come true for a number of students in Latin America, and they are inspiring many others to see their own dreams as a real possibility.

In the fall of 2009, a group of Suzuki flute teachers and students in Canada, the US, and Taiwan contributed to the purchase of a Di Zhao alto and bass flute for the Orquesta de Flauta Traversas de San Martin de los Andes in Patagonia, Argentina.

In September 2010, members of the ensemble traveled to Paraguay to give demonstration concerts in local schools, and participate in master classes in Suzuki pedagogy for twelve teacher workshop participants. The twenty-seven-member tour group included flutists from the ages of seven to adult, and they performed Argentinean folk music as well as standards like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the concerto for two flutes in C major by Vivaldi, and Passacaglia by Handel. They made big waves: the teachers who heard them play in Asunción immediately set the goal of founding a flute orchestra in Paraguay over the next few years.

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I had been preparing for this trip for a long time. Whether it had been in practicing my instruments, (piano and violin), learning Spanish, or packing clothes, I had done a lot of it, and there was no reason whatsoever to feel nervous about not being ready for my first trip out of the U.S. Needless to say, on the morning of our flight, January 1, 2010, I was so tense, I nearly threw up.

Back in August, I accepted an invitation from Caroline Frazer to come to the 25th International Festival in Lima, Peru. Caroline Fraser, the director of the…

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My son David and I recently had the wonderful opportunity to attend the 25th annual Suzuki Music Festival in Lima, Peru, where David had 2 1/2 weeks of intense, exciting, beautiful and emotional experiences making music, making friends and celebrating with Suzuki students, parents, teachers and community from all over Latin America. The months leading up to our New Year’s Day departure to Peru included planning and preparing several fundraising recitals in community and house concert settings, with enthusiastic and generous guidance and support by David’s piano teacher, Doris Koppelman.

Last summer Caroline Fraser, the director of the Lima Festival…

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From the Suzuki Association of Peru: Caroline Fraser and Roberta Centurion

I Encuentro de Alumnos Suzuki de América Latina
(The First Latin American Suzuki students “Get-together”)
January 9th through the 12th, 2010, Lima, Peru

This was a historic occasion for Suzuki programs in the Americas and the result of a long-time dream of the Latin American Suzuki teachers. An “Encuentro” is literally a “meeting together.” Children from…

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The January 2009 Suzuki Festival in Lima, Peru, was in full swing; but as it progressed I kept trying to find a time to connect with Padre William Lopez. Over the past several years, the young Padre had been bringing increasingly larger groups of kids from his day school in Huancavalica, and many of them had been in my recorder master classes and groups. (I am told that it is the most poverty stricken region of Peru.)

This year he brought no fewer than 20 students, and for the first time I noticed that girls were included. Quiet and well-behaved,…

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XXIV Festival International, Lima Peru, January 4th-30th, 2009

Around 250 teachers and 500 students attended this year’s successful festival held in Lima, Peru. Participants travelled from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, México, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela to attend. The majority of the students and teachers came from all over Peru, many from remote areas, making arduous bus journeys to arrive in the capital city. Many of the students and teachers participated in the festival on scholarships thanks to our generous donors.

Our excellent teacher training faculty comprised of Beth Goldstein McKee, Marilyn O’Boyle, Nancy Lokken, MaryLou Roberts, Mary Halverson Waldo,…

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Piano group activity

Every year the Suzuki Association of Peru holds two National Workshops: one in Lima, the capital of Peru, and one in another region of the country. These workshops are designed for low income families and for teachers and students living outside the capital city. The VII National Workshop took place in the city of Ayacucho, which lies in the central part of Peru in the Andean mountains. The event was held at the Cultural Centre of the National University of San Cristobál de Huamanga, which was founded in 1677. The University, the Municipality of Huamanga and the Suzuki Association of Peru jointly sponsored the workshop. I taught a Suzuki philosophy course, and an Early Childhood Music workshop was given by Cecilia Rodriguez from Lima. Erick Escalaya, director of the organizing committee in Ayacucho, wrote about the Early Childhood Music course: “The teachers were left speechless by this marvelous course and by the professional qualities of the teacher Ceci. One of the parents said that this course had changed the way he would now bring up his children.” This alone makes the workshop worthwhile!

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Lima, Peru
January 5-24, 2008

Over 200 teachers and 400 students attended this successful event held in Newton College in the capital city of Peru. The SAA teacher trainers were Marilyn O’Boyle, Nancy Lokken, Nancy Hair, Virginia Dixon, MaryLou Roberts, Doris Koppelman and Mary Halverson Waldo, all from the USA; Kelly Williamson from Canada; Eduardo Ludueña and Fernando Piñero from Argentina; Caroline Fraser from Peru and for the first time Mary McCarthy from Scotland.

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“Unidos hacia un sueño común”
Lima, Peru
January 12-14, 2008

More than seventy-five teachers from thirteen countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, EEUU, Scotland, México, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela attended the IV Latin American Suzuki Teachers’ Conference held in Lima, Peru in January.

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Flute Books 2 and 3 were offered for returning teachers, including participants from Peru, Colombia, and Chile, and Book 1 was offered for new Suzuki flute teachers from Peru and Colombia. A new course, Introduction to Flute, was also offered for one teacher who is interested in taking Book 1 next year, but who needed to acquire basic skills on the instrument. As is usual at the Peru festival, all courses save Book 1 and the new introductory course include ten additional hours of “teaching strategies”, in which teachers have the opportunity to give lessons to children participating in the festival, and explore opportunities to develop their skills using the teaching descriptors developed by the SAA.

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The V National Suzuki Workshop

Huancayo V National Suzuki Workshop poster.

On May 15-20, 2007, the V National Suzuki Workshop of Peru was held in Huancayo in the Andean mountains from 15th-20th of May, 2007. It was sponsored jointly by the Asociación Suzuki del Peru and CHEA-El Centro Humanista de Expresión Artística. A dedicated organizational team was led by workshop directors Sabino Blancas and Rocio Villa. Annika Petrozzi, Isaac Garcia, Roberta Centurión, Luciana Castillo and Caroline Fraser made the eight-hour bus journey from Lima to teach cello, recorder, guitar and piano students. Allyson Abram traveled from Cusco to give violin lessons.

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Two flutes went to Fernando Formigo’s Suzuki flute program in Patagonia, Argentina. Fernando has 40 students, 10 of whom do not own an instrument. Fernando has studied books 1-3 with David Gerry in Lima, Peru. He has also created a number of wonderful arrangements of Latin American music for his students which he has generously shared with Kelly Williamson, who has in turn shared them with other teachers.

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Lima, Peru, January 8-27, 2007

One of our most inspiring participants was Cecilia Zarate, a former Suzuki piano and violin student from Cordoba, Argentina, home to one of the oldest Suzuki programs in Latin America. Now a professional violinist and teacher, she had studied as a child with Eduardo Ludueña, now Latin America’s newest violin teacher trainer. Cecilia had come to Peru for Nancy Lokken’s course on “How to Teach Musicality,” and for Roxana del Barco’s and Lucha del Rio’s course on “Early Childhood Music.” At the Festival, Cecilia offered to play in the Teachers’ Orchestra that would accompany the student soloists. She asked me to give her the program a little early, a day before the first rehearsal. I had to tell her that it hadn’t yet been set. The program was announced on the morning of the first rehearsal. As she sat in the orchestra that afternoon, during the rests she lightly ran her fingers over her Braille transcriptions of the music. Afterwards, she apologized for occasionally confusing the bowings. A few days later, Cecilia played the entire orchestral concert repertoire from memory. Her serenity and joy was an example for us all.

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My first experience in Peru was teaching at the XXII International Suzuki Festival in Lima. Two of the three courses I taught while I was there were pedagogy units in violin. Each unit was followed by a 10-hour Teaching Strategies session that was included as part of the unit course. Therefore, the five-day unit course became seven days long.

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In January 2007, Kelly Williamson joined a faculty of many different Suzuki instrument areas to teach at the XXII Festival Internacional de Musica Suzuki in Lima, Peru. Books 1, 3 and 4 were offered for flute teachers, as well as masterclasses for students.

Flute Book 1 class at XXII Festival Internacional de Musica Suzuki.

4th National Suzuki Workshop
September 30-October 1st
Lima, Peru

Eric Escalaya, guitarist from Ayacucho had traveled over 12 hours by bus to participate in this two-day workshop which was sponsored by the Suzuki Association of Peru. He had been the only participant from Ayacucho attending the International Suzuki Festival which was held in January of this year. Now, eight months later, he traveled with five colleagues. Many of the 90 participants, had traveled overnight by bus from different parts of Peru to Lima on Friday, to return home on Sunday night and be back at school or work on Monday.

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Apulli, seven years old and bright-eyed with excitement, ran home to take out his older brother Llalliq’s music for Book 2, and gleefully exclaimed, “Now I can read music!”

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“I can state without being afraid of being wrong that instead of understanding the Mother Tongue Approach, we have to feel it, talk about it and live it, until it becomes part of our very being.”
—Marcos Santiago, philosophy class participant

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