-As you mentioned, the Orchestra has grown despite not always having the adequate resources. In this regard, what does it mean to become part of the Stable Ensembles?

-Entering the orbit of the National State, first as a subsidized program and as part of the National Directorate of Stable Ensembles and the Secretariat of Culture of the Ministry of Human Capital, meant for us a very important qualitative and quantitative change.

Quantitative, because the orchestra, when we entered the State, had 55 members. Nowadays, it has 86 scholarship recipients who receive a monthly stipend to cover the costs of studies and, in many cases, also minor repairs of their instruments (strings, reeds, etc.). On the other hand, qualitative, because with the increase in the number of members, we were able to tackle major repertoires ideal for facing the demands they would later have in the most important symphony orchestras in the country. Thus, we were able to perform works such as The Rite of Spring, Petrushka, The Firebird; some symphonies by Mahler like the first, second, fifth, and sixth; we also performed symphonies by Bruckner like the third, fourth, seventh, and soon the eighth. All this has made this orchestra become a preliminary stage to enter the professional ones. This is now linked to the fact that the National University of the Arts, through the Department of Musical and Sound Arts, has created the career for Orchestra Instrumentalist. I am very happy about this because it was my plan, a proposal that I brought to the university and was accepted very willingly. Currently, the young people in the orchestra have to complete three years of continuous work and three non-face-to-face subjects annually. After these three years, they become Technicians in Orchestra Instrumentalists. What importance does this have? On the one hand, having an official national university degree, even if it is undergraduate, gives them much greater self-esteem. On the other hand, if they enter a state orchestra, the degree means a 30% higher salary for them, precisely because they are titled instrumentalists.

All of this, I think, is part of our transition to the State, which has now been fully realized by becoming part of the National Directorate of Stable Ensembles. This means not the stability of each child in the orchestra, but the stability of the scholarships of the children in the orchestra. It means that this is an orchestra that has come to stay.

-If you had to briefly explain to someone the importance of the existence of orchestras like the National Youth Symphony “José de San Martín”, what would you say?

-I would tell them that this orchestra has three essential elements: an educational one, another social-labor one, and another cultural one. It is educational because it teaches young people to tackle the great works of our symphonic and operatic repertoire. In addition, we perform at least one opera during the year to prepare them for any orchestra. The second one is of a social-labor nature, as it offers them job opportunities; a large percentage of our young people win competitions in the main symphony orchestras in the country every year, which ensures them a permanent work and artistic life by entering the State through a competition, thus obtaining a lifetime appointment. Finally, in terms of the cultural element, there is the compensation they provide by organizing concerts, whether at the Faculty of Law, at the CCK, and many other places, including educational concerts to create new audiences. This orchestra created the audience at the Faculty of Law, which until 1994 – after the defunct State Radio Symphony Orchestras and Youth Radio Symphony Orchestras around 1960- had no music. We reopened it and created an audience, just as we did at the CCK. We have been closely linked to this cultural center from the beginning; we usually perform in the Symphony Hall, but we also inaugurated the Argentine Hall, an honor that was granted to us.

-Finally, what feelings does the upcoming anniversary concert of the 30 years of the National Youth Symphony evoke in you?

-It arouses in me a profound emotion. The celebration of the 30 years will be a concert full of reminiscence and nostalgia. All those assistant conductors who passed through the orchestra will participate. We have a director training program that has been going on for 7 or 8 years during which they are trained not only in conducting but also in matters related to the management and organization of a symphonic ensemble. We have directors who will conduct because they are more or less close, although some are not so close. There are people coming from Neuquén, like Andrés Tolcachir, or from Paraguay, like José Ramírez, who comes exclusively to conduct for a few minutes. Each one will conduct a work and will be accompanied by the concertmaster they had when they were in the orchestra. We have also called on former members who want and can form a mega-orchestra. It is so big that we will have to rotate so that everyone has the possibility of entering the stage at the CCK.

There are some conductors who cannot come for reasons, whether work-related or distance-related. This is the case of Debora Waldman, the first female conductor of a National Orchestra in France and current principal conductor of the Avignon National Orchestra, who was an assistant for three years in the orchestra. Pablo Boggiano will also not be present, a very frequent conductor of the National Symphony and the Philharmonic, who usually conducts in Vienna and Eastern European countries. Luis Belforte, the current principal conductor of the Bahía Blanca Orchestra, will also not be part of it.

Performers such as María Cecilia Muñoz will play; she is the flute teacher of the orchestra and at the same time was one of its members for several years. That is to say, she is someone who left the orchestra and then returned as a teacher. Ezequiel Fainguersch, the Calzado Linage brothers, the Nardozza sisters, all founders of the orchestra, Juan Bringas, one of the first concertmasters, will also be present. In other words, there will be a very exciting overview of the orchestra’s history through works that resonate with the audience, such as the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, which will be conducted by Roberto Luvini, and then Finlandia by Sibelius conducted by Andrés Tolcachir. Afterwards, Abel Ghelman will conduct the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro. Ezequiel Silberstein will then lead the Rakoczy March from The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz. Then, Mariano Fidanza will conduct a bandoneon player. The orchestra does not have a bandoneon, it is a very strange and peculiar case. Esteban Ignacio Calderón, by the way, son of the great conductor Pedro Ignacio Calderón, started in the orchestra as a double bassist. He spent three years and then won a competition to become a double bassist in the San Juan Orchestra, and then switched to the bandoneon and is now a prominent solo bandoneon player. So much so that several years ago, he was with us at the CCK playing Piazzolla’s concerto, and this time he will be the soloist in Adiós Nonino.

María Clara Marco Fernández will conduct the Don Giovanni’s Overture by Mozart, José Ramírez will take charge of excerpts from Carmen by Bizet, and finally Agustín Tocalini will take the baton for the Turkish March from The Ruins of Athens by Beethoven and the Hungarian Dance No. 5 by Brahms. I will close the concert by conducting a premiere work, specially written for this occasion by Maestro Juan Carlos Figueiras, who has been one of the artists who has supported us the most from the Faculty of Law. This piece is called The Border, and we will end with the Radetzky March by Strauss. I think it’s a program deeply rooted in the public and that they will enjoy.