NEXT YEAR IN GUATEMALA!

Back home now and ready to share about the closing days of the VI Festival in El Salvador.

This year’s festival was bigger than ever. Teachers in my course represented four countries: Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and, of course, El Salvador. Our classes were held in the Albert Einstein University in nearby Antiguo Cuscatlán.

Teacher Training Course
12 Teachers from 4 Countries

Many teachers and some of the students traveled in a delegation from Visión Mundiál (World Vision) in Guatemala. There they are doing great work providing Arts Education to underprivileged families. This video is in Spanish, but you get the idea.
Guatemala ‘Visión Mundiál’ in the news!

One afternoon, right outside the window in my classroom was the bird that the Barrios composition “Bicho Feo” was named after. Since I recently uploaded a video of this piece, it was really cool to be seeing the bird ‘Live!’ He was chirping away in the same manner as the intro ‘sweeps’ from the piece!

It happened the next day, too, and this time I pointed it out to everyone and asked if they recognized the bird. They didn’t recognize the name as it’s more commonly known as benteveo.
BichoFeo or Benteveo
There are legends surrounding the origin of this bird’s voice. The following was translated from an article in ‘Wikipedia:’

In some places, they believe that when benteveo cries it’s unique melodic call beside a house, he is announcing the arrival of unexpected company: relatives, friends or strangers. In other places they consider it a birth announcement. In rural areas of the Argentinian coastline, it’s cry is generally considered a warning of a bad omen which one should flee to avoid. A legend of the guaraní tribe says that the benteveo was a wicked grandson who the god Tupá turned into a bird because he would not give his dying grandfather a glass of water.
Legends of Benteveo!
Now I really know more about this bird than I probably ever needed to!!

** SPOT LIGHT ON SANTIAGO **

Santiago was my last student every day of the festival. He also plays cello, so his guitar lesson had to fit in around all of the cello classes. Since his dad is the festival director, I’ve watched him grow up to his ripe old age of 8.

At the end of every lesson, I ask the student and the parent (if one is there) if they have any questions. Usually, the response is “No.” His lessons stood out because every day his answer was “Yes!”

The questions ranged from “Who ARE you?” to “why did you choose that activity to do in my lesson today?” to “what do you call that thing on the guitar?” (indicating a guitar support that was used)

Santiago at his lesson

Well, one day in his lesson, we focused on using vibrato. He seemed to already know how to do it and said something about playing the cello. But when I ran into his cello teacher, she insisted he wasn’t ready for vibrato on the cello yet. “Well,” I told her, “he did a great job with it on his guitar today!”

On the day of the Final Concert, Santi was the most enthusiastic vibrato-er of all. He didn’t miss one chance to use vibrato on the long notes of the pieces we performed as a group. Funny thing – he was the only one! Many of the others know about it and should have been playing with vibrato. There he was – because he’s restricted from it’s use on cello – faithfully and beautifully vibrato-ing his little heart out on his guitar.

The Final Concert for the students and Presentation of Certificates to the Teacher Course participants is always both exciting and sad at the same time. The most exciting announcement is the formation of a new Festival in Guatemala to be held alternating years with the one in El Salvador. So, the greeting “see you next year in Guatemala,” replaced having to say only ‘Goodbye.’

Guitarists in the Final Concert