Opening Paths: Mexican Composer Ricardo Castro and Latin America’s First Cello Concerto (Part 2)

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Opening Paths: Mexican Composer Ricardo Castro and Latin America’s First Cello Concerto (Part 2)

The Cello Concerto

It is a mystery how Castro, who apart from being a composer was also a pianist of extraordinary ability, embarked on the composition of a cello concerto, the first written in Latin America. Although there had been associations between cellists and composers in important 19th century works for the instrument (e.g. Beethoven-Duport, Brahms-Hausmann, Chopin-Franchomme, Tchaikovsky-Fitzenhagen amongst others), Castro had no known personal association with any particular cellist who might have ignited his creative inspiration. Nevertheless, it is known that Castro was familiar with the work of the famous Russian virtuoso Karl Davydov (1838-1889), as he made and conducted an arrangement for cello and orchestra of a Lied composed by the Russian cellist. There are also documents in which Castro expresses his admiration for the great Catalonian cellist Pablo Casals, but no evidence has been found to suggest the two ever met.

Even though there is no data that points towards a moment for the genesis of the cello concerto, it is presumed that Castro composed it Mexico before his trip to Europe in January 1903. However, there is a possibility that he wrote it in Europe between January and March, since it was first performed on April 6, 1903. This would have constituted an exceptional achievement for Castro. It would have naturally taken considerable effort to compose the work, look for a soloist willing to learn it in such a short time, and finally find an orchestra to accompany him, all within the stressful environment of new surroundings.

Castro dedicated his concerto to the Belgian cellist Marix Loevensohn (1880-1943) who premiered the work at the Salle Erard in Paris. Loevensohn was a prominent cellist who was possibly a member of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. Later, Loevensohn continued his friendship with Castro and was an important link between the Mexican composer and other teachers and composers of the time.

Castro publicly showed his admiration for French music, particularly that of Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), as he stated in an interview with the newspaper El Diario (November 13, 1906):

“I have a very high opinion of it (French music)… although it has been scarce in symphonists….but they have one very great for me (Saint-Saëns). He has not yet been fully appreciated, not even in France itself.”

This influence, in addition to that of German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883), seems to be definitive in the composition of Castro’s cello concerto. Some scholars speculate that in some of his tours through Latin America and the United States, Castro heard Saint-Saëns concerto No.1 for cello Op. 33, composed in 1872. This may have caused a great impression on him, perhaps sparking his creative muse. Castro’s work shows many similarities to the Saint-Saëns Concerto, not only in style, but also in form, theme, and texture. In these regards, we observe the following comparisons:

1. Uninterrupted movements: Saint-Saëns links the three movements, while Castro links only the first two. Castro writes this transition as a cello cadenza accompanied at the end by the orchestra while Saint-Saens’ uses the same resource without the final accompaniment.

2. Comparing the opening of each concerto we observe a few stylistic coincidences:

a) An initial strong chord followed by tremolos on the strings

b) A first theme of a nervous character on the tremolando strings (in this respect the beginning of measure 17 is practically a copy of the beginning of the Saint-Saëns).

3. In the second movement of Castro’s concerto, the chords in the orchestra followed by semi-formal passages by the soloist, emulate a similar passage in the third movement of the Saint-Saëns Concerto (8 measures before the rehearsal letter N).

4. The cyclical nature of the work, an aspect widely used by French musicians, is reflected in both the use of the main theme of the first movement at the end of the concert, as a unifying element to the work and appearance of the transition theme in measure 48 in rehearsal number 48 in the second movement.

Although the writing in his cello concerto reveals knowledge about the capabilities and resources of the instrument, Castro probably sketched the work from the piano. Therefore, the instrumental and orchestral resources belong more to the pianistic world. Notwithstanding the great advances in the construction of musical instruments, the cello could never compete with the powerful sound of the piano. The large orchestral forces used in the work and the dense orchestration are more appropriate for a piano concerto. The resulting solo part relies heavily on utilizing the high tessitura register with very few moments in the middle range and almost none on the lower strings, representing a challenge for the performer. The soloist must handle impeccable tuning within a musical narrative that demands sound clarity, as well as purity of phrasing. On the other hand, instrumental writing in octaves, idiomatic for the keyboard as a sound power resource, does not have the same musical effect on the cello, producing passages of virtuosity without the musical ease that occurs when interpreted on the piano.

Seventy-eight years after its premiere in Paris, Ricardo Castro’s cello concerto was performed a second time on July 11, 1981, with the cellist Carlos Prieto and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería conducted by Jorge Velazco at the Sala Nezahualcóyotl in Mexico City. Prieto and Velazco later recorded it in 1985 with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. Prieto also gave the North American premiere in 1987 under the baton of Sergio Cardenas in San Bernardino, California.

Sources

All of the Ricardo Castro’s concerto sources seem to stem from a score owned by the Edwin E. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music of the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Fleisher Collection acquired the score from Mexican scholar José María Luján in May of 1942, under the sponsorship of the Work Progress Administration Music Copying Project. A copy of the score was presumably sent back to Mexico in 1964, as a part of an interchange of scores with the Conservatorio Nacional de Música where the Fleisher Collection obtained microfilm images of works by Ricardo Castro, Blas Galindo, and Luis Sandi Meneses among other composers.

Even though the origin of the source hasn’t yet been established, a comparison between Ricardo Castro’s handwriting as sampled in autograph documents and the handwriting of the Fleisher Collection’s score suggests that the score is in the composer’s hand. Significant examples of the multiple resemblances are capitals A and S on the first page of Atzimba’s autograph manuscript (in words Atzimba and Scene) and those same letters as exemplified in the first page of the cello concerto’s score in the words Violoncello Solo and Alto; capital T in Tristán in a letter to Gustavo E. Campa that Castro wrote on September 1st, 1903, and capital T in Trompettes and Trombones as exemplified in the first page of the concerto’s score; the two kinds of letter F used to write the word Flute in the score’s first page (type 1) and in Petite flute in page 39 of the score, and the capital F in a postcard written by Castro and sent to Catalan composer Felipe Pedrell of which we don’t know the date, and the f as used in the word Felicien when writing “Rue Felicien David 10” in the aforementioned letter to Campa. Other more obvious resemblances in capital letters V, B and C can however be considered less characteristic of Castro’s writing.

Two of the other sources that exist for the Castro cello concerto are owned by Mexican institutions: a score owned by the Orquesta de Minerías; and a piano reduction authored by Eduardo Hernández Moncada published at the Heterofonía Magazine in 2007. There is a high probability that those two sources stem from Fleisher Collection’s score.

1 The arrangement was performed at a concerto in Mexico’s Teatro Nacional on December 26 of 1885. For a reference to this concert, see: Gloria Carmona, Álbum de Ricardo Castro, (México DF: CONSEJO NACIONAL PARA LA CULTURA Y LAS ARTES, 2009), 36.

2 Castro expressed his admiration for the Catalan cellist in a review of a concert in Geneva, where he praises Casals’ “admirable qualities of fine musicality, perfect understanding, exquisite interpretation and marvelous virtuosity.” See: Ricardo Castro, “El arte en Ginebra” (1906), Heterofonía. Revista de Investigación Musical, (CENIDIM, México D.F, 2007), 108-109.

3 The WPA Music Copying Project had the goal of providing employment to music copyists in order to preserve the works of contemporary American composers by transcribing handwritten scores and parts from unpublished works. The WPA Music Copying Project was funded by the American government and led by the Fleisher Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia

4 To see the letter to Campa and other autograph documents, see: Gloria Carmona, Álbum de Ricardo Castro, (México DF: CONSEJO NACIONAL PARA LA CULTURA Y LAS ARTES, 2009); to find the postcard to Felipe Pedrell, the first page of Atzimba and other autograph documents, see: Rogelio Álvarez Meneses, El Compositor Mexicano Ricardo Castro (1864-1907): vida y obra.

ABRIENDO CAMINOS: EL mexicano Ricardo Castro y el primer concerto para violonchelo en Latinoamérica

El Concierto para Violoncello

Es un misterio cómo Ricardo Castro, quien además de ser compositor era un pianista de extraordinarias habilidades, se embarca en la composición de un concierto para violoncello, el primero escrito en Latinoamérica. Si bien han existido asociaciones entre cellistas y compositores para la producción de obras importantes en el siglo XIX (Beethoven-Duport, Brahms-Hausmann, Chopin-Franchome, Tchaikovski-Fitzenhagen, entre otras), no se conoce ninguna asociación personal con algún cellista particular que hubiera podido encender la inspiración creadora del autor. No obstante, es sabido que Castro estaba familiarizado con la obra del famoso virtuoso ruso Karl Davydov (1838-1889), ya que él compuso y dirigió un arreglo para cello y orquesta de un lied compuesto por el cellista ruso. También existen documentos en los que Castro expresa su admiración por el gran cellista catalán Pablo Casals, pero no se ha encontrado documentación sobre encuentros entre estos dos artistas.

Aunque no hay datos que apunten hacia un momento específico en la génesis del concierto, se presume que la obra fue compuesta en México antes de su viaje a Europa en enero de 1903. Sin embargo, no se descarta la posibilidad de que ésta haya sido escrita en Europa entre enero y marzo de 1903, ya que fue estrenada el 6 de abril de 1903, lo cual sería un excepcional logro para Castro al escribirlo, encontrar un solista que fuera capaz de interpretar la obra con tan corto tiempo para su preparación, y también encontrar una orquesta que lo acompañara.

El concierto fue dedicado al cellista belga Marix Loevensohn (1880-1943) y estrenado por éste en la Salle Erard de París. Loevensohn fue un cellista destacado que posiblemente fue miembro de la Orquesta del Concertgebouw de Amsterdam. Posteriormente Loevensohn continuó su amistad con Castro y fue un vínculo importante entre el mexicano y otros maestros y compositores de la época.

En algunas ocasiones Castro mostró públicamente su admiración por la música francesa, en particular por la de Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), como lo manifestó en una entrevista que apareció en El Diario, el 13 de noviembre de 1906:

Tengo muy alta idea de ella (la música francesa), (…) nada más que es más escasa en sinfonistas (…) aunque tienen uno para mí muy grande: Saint-Saëns. Como compositores dramáticos, para teatro, creo a los franceses, sí, superiores a los alemanes. Saint-Saëns, en este género, creo que no ha sido aún apreciado ni en la misma Francia.

Esta influencia, además de la del alemán Richard Wagner (1813-1883), parece ser definitiva en la composición del concierto de violoncello. Se especula que en algunas de sus giras por Latinoamérica y Estados Unidos quizás Castro escuchó el concierto No.1 para cello Op.33 de Camille Saint-Saëns, compuesto en 1872, y que tal vez ésta obra causó una impresión que incendió su musa creativa. La obra de Castro muestra una vasta cantidad de similitudes con el Concierto de Saint-Saëns, no solo en estilo, sino también en forma, temática y textura. En este particular las siguientes comparaciones saltan a la vista:

1. Movimientos ininterrumpidos: Saint-Saëns enlaza los tres movimientos, mientras que Castro enlaza sólo los dos primeros. Castro realiza este enlace con una cadencia de cello solo que es acompañada al final por la orquesta. Saint-Saëns usa el mismo recurso sin el acompañamiento final.

2. Al comparar los dos comienzos observamos varios puntos en común:

a) Un acorde fuerte inicial seguido de trémolos en las cuerdas.

b) Un primer tema de carácter nervioso sobre las cuerdas tremoladas (en este aspecto la reposición del compás 17 es prácticamente una copia del comienzo del concierto de Saint-Saëns).

3. Segundo movimiento: Los acordes en la orquesta seguidos de pasajes semicadenciales en el violoncello solista emulan un pasaje similar en el tercer movimiento del Concierto de Saint-Saëns (8 antes de la letra de ensayo N).

4. La naturaleza cíclica de los temas, un aspecto muy usado por los músicos franceses, se ve reflejada en:

a) El uso del tema principal del primer movimiento al final del concierto como elemento unificador de la obra.

b) Aparición del tema de transición del compás 48 en el número 48 de ensayo (segundo movimiento).

Si bien la escritura en el concierto de violoncello muestra un conocimiento instrumental sobre las capacidades y recursos del instrumento, Castro probablemente esbozó la obra desde el piano y por ello los recursos instrumentales y orquestales parecen pertenecer más al mundo pianístico. A pesar de los grandes avances en construcción de instrumentos musicales, el violoncello jamás podrá competir con el poder sonoro del piano. La gran masa orquestal utilizada en la obra, y la densa orquestación, más apropiada para un concierto para piano y orquesta, conlleva a que la escritura para el violoncello solista enfatice la tesitura aguda del instrumento, con muy pocas incursiones en el registro medio y casi ninguna en el registro grave. Esto hace que la parte solista resulte de gran dificultad para el intérprete. El solista debe manejar una afinación impecable dentro de un estilo musical que demanda claridad sonora y pureza de fraseo. Por otro lado, la escritura instrumental en octavas, muy idiomática para el teclado como recurso de potencia sonora, no tiene el mismo efecto musical en el violoncello, produciendo pasajes de virtuosismo sin la soltura musical que se produce al interpretarlas en el piano.

Setenta y ocho años después de su estreno en París, el concierto para violoncello de Ricardo Castro recibió su segunda audición el 11 de julio de 1981 con el violoncellista Carlos Prieto y la Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería dirigida por Jorge Velazco en la Sala Nezahualcóyotl de la Ciudad de México. Prieto y Velazco posteriormente grabaron la obra en 1985 con la Sinfónica de Berlín en una versión de poco tiraje. Prieto también interpretó la obra por primera vez en los Estados Unidos en 1987, con el director Sergio Cardenas en San Bernardino, California.

Fuentes

Todas las fuentes del concierto de Ricardo Castro parecen emanar de un score manuscrito que perteneció al investigador mexicano José María Luján y que actualmente forma parte de la colección de la Edwin E. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music de la Free Library de Filadelfia. La adquisición del score por parte de la Fleisher Collection en 1942 contó con el patrocinio de la Work Progress Administration Music Copying Project. Una copia del score fue presumiblemente enviada desde Filadelfia a México en 1964, como parte de un intercambio de scores con el Conservatorio Nacional de Música a través del cual la Fleisher Collection obtuvo imágenes microfilmadas de obras de Ricardo Castro, Blas Galindo y Luis Sandi Meneses, entre otras obras.

Si bien el origen de la fuente de la Fleisher Collection no ha sido trazado, la comparación de las caligrafías de documentos autógrafos de Ricardo Castro y la caligrafía del score de la Fleisher Collection apunta hacia la hipótesis de que el score fue copiado por el compositor. Ejemplos significativos de estas múltiples similitudes son la A y la S mayúsculas de la primera página del manuscrito autógrafo de Atzimba (en las palabras Atzimba y Scene) y esas mismas letras como se ejemplifican en la primera página del score del concierto de violoncello en las palabras Violoncello Solo y Alto; la T mayúscula de Tristán en una carta escrita por Castro y dirigida a Gustavo E. Campa el 1 de septiembre de 1903 y la T mayúscula de Trompettes y Trombones tal como se ejemplifica en la primera página del score del concierto; los dos tipos de F usados para escribir la palabra Flute en la primera página del score (tipo 1) y en Petite flute en la página 39 del score y la F mayúscula de una postal escrita por Castro y enviada al compositor Catalán Felipe Pedrell sin fecha, y la f usada en la palabra Felicien al escribir “Rue Felicien David 10” en la carta a Campa mencionada con anterioridad. Otras similitudes más obvias pero con caligrafías que podrían ser consideradas más comunes son las V. B, y C mayúsculas.

Dos de las otras fuentes existentes del concierto para violoncello de Castro pertenecen a instituciones mexicanas: un score que está en posesión de la Orquesta de Minerías, y una reducción para violoncello y piano escrita por Eduardo Hernández Moncada que fue publicada por la revista Heterofonía en el 2007. Es altamente probable que estas dos fuentes se hayan basado en el score de la Fleisher Collection.

1 El arreglo fue interpretado en un concierto en el Teatro Nacional de México, el 26 de diciembre de 1885. Para una referencia a este concierto, ver: Gloria Carmona, Álbum de Ricardo Castro, (México DF: CONSEJO NACIONAL PARA LA CULTURA Y LAS ARTES, 2009), 36.

2 Castro expresó su admiración por el cellista catalán en una nota crítica a un concierto en Ginebra, donde alaba las “admirables cualidades de musicalidad fina, perfecta comprensión, interpretación exquisita y maravilloso virtuosismo”

de Casals. Ver: Ricardo, “El arte en Ginebra” (1906), Heterofonía. Revista de Investigación Musical, (CENIDIM, México D.F, 2007), 108-109.

3 El Work Progress Administration Music Copying Project fue una iniciativa financiada por el gobierno de los Estados Unidos que tenía como objetivo crear empleos para copistas musicales, para así preservar las obras de los compositores contemporáneos de los Estados Unidos a través de la transcripción manuscrita de los scores y partes individuales de obras no publicadas.

4 Para encontrar la carta a Campa y otros documentos autógrafos, ver: Gloria Carmona, Álbum de Ricardo Castro, (México DF: CONSEJO NACIONAL PARA LA CULTURA Y LAS ARTES, 2009); para encontrar la postal a Felipe Pedrell, la primera página de Atzimba y otros documentos autógrafos, ver Rogelio Álvarez Meneses, El Compositor Mexicano Ricardo Castro (1864-1907): vida y obra.

By Natali Herrera-Pacheco, Horacio Contreras, and Germán Marcano|2024-07-05T20:08:21-04:00June 12th, 2022|Categories: Historical, Repertoire|Tags: Cello Repertoire, Ricardo Castro, Latin America, José Joaquim Emérico Lobo de Mesquita, Mexican Revolution, Marix Loevensohn, Karl Davydov, Pablo Casals, cello concerto|

About the Author: Natali Herrera-Pacheco, Horacio Contreras, and Germán Marcano

Natali Herrera-Pacheco is a Venezuelan artist and scholar that works on the intersection of music with other expressive forms. Natali holds a Doctorate in Latin American literature from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain; and a Masters in Ethnohistory and a Bachelors in Art History from the Universidad de Los Andes in Venezuela.

As a scholar, her work has encompassed the study of Venezuelan musical rituals and the relationship of music and literature in the work of Dominican writer Marcio Veloz Maggiolo. She has published articles in scholarly journals in Venezuela and presented papers at conferences in France (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), Mexico (53 International Congress of Americanists), Venezuela (Third National Congress of Anthropology), and Spain (University of Granada).

As an artist, her activity centers in images, both still (photography) and mobile (video). Natali was an artist-in-residence of Khemia Ensemble, a music collective devoted to the presentation of contemporary concert music in innovative ways. Her character Fragile inspired the ensemble’s 2017-2018 concert season, where she collaborated in intersections of Natali’s video-art and Carolina Heredia’s music in the works Negative Image and Interludio. Her video-art has been presented at venues and festivals including National Sawdust, Strange Beautiful Music Festival, University of Missouri, MoxSonic Experimental Sonic Arts Festival, among others. In photography, her main interests has been photography of musicians and street photography. She has worked as a freelance photographer for the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theater and Dance; faculty members of the schools of music of the University of Michigan, University of Missouri, Baylor University, Lawrence University; the chamber music ensembles Khemia Ensemble and the Ivalas Quartet; and members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Her most recent project is the production of the educative video series The Voices of Latin-American Cello, hosted by The Sphinx Catalog of Latin-American Cello Works. Natali is fluent in Spanish, English and French, and lives a happy life with her two cats and her husband in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Venezuelan cellist Horacio Contreras has gained esteem through a multifaceted career as a concert cellist, chamber musician, pedagogue, and scholar. He has collaborated with prestigious institutions across the Americas and Europe as a concerto soloist, a recitalist, a chamber musician, and a master class clinician.

Highlights of his career include solo performances with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and the Municipal Orchestra of Caracas in Venezuela, the EAFIT University Orchestra in Colombia, the Camerata de France in France, and the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra and the Music Institute of Chicago’s Chamber Orchestra in the US; chamber collaborations with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and members of the Detroit, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras, and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin; and master classes at Bloomington, Juilliard, Michigan, Oberlin and the ASTA National Convention, as well as at many renowned programs from Latin America. Recent collaborations include the recording of the works for cello and piano by Ricardo Lorenz, the commission and premiere of Diáspora for cello and piano by the Schubert Club’s composer-in-residence Reinaldo Moya, and the recording of Shuying Li’s World Map Concerti with the Four Corners Ensemble.

Horacio serves on the faculty of Lawrence University, the Music Institute of Chicago and the University of Michigan’s MPulse summer institute Center Stage Strings. His students have made solo recordings, soloed nationally and internationally, attended festivals such as Aspen, Orford and Domaine Forget, and won awards at international and national competitions. They have continued their education at institutions including the University of Michigan, the San Francisco Conservatory, the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne in Switzerland, and the Hochschule for Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Mannheim, Germany. Some of his former students have pursued successful careers as orchestral musicians, chamber musicians, teachers, and freelancers. Others have devoted their energies to grow in other professional areas and enjoy a meaningful connection with music through the cello.

He is the founder and artistic director of Strings of Latin America, an official partner to the Sphinx Organization with the purpose of social engagement through the promotion of diversity in the classical music world. As a part of his efforts to help diversifying the repertoire, he coauthored The Sphinx Catalog of Latin-American Cello Works, a comprehensive database with information about works for cello written by Latin American composers created in partnership with the Sphinx Organization and CelloBello.org. His pedagogic book Exercises for the Cello in Various Combinations of Double-Stops has received recognition as a significant contribution to the instrument’s literature.

He is a member of the Four Corners Ensemble and the Reverón Piano Trio. He started his musical studies in Venezuela through El Sistema, and holds degrees from the Conservatoire National de Région de Perpignan, France, the Escola de Musica de Barcelona, Spain, and the University of Michigan. He is represented by Meluk Kultur Management and Halac Artists together with his colleagues of the Reverón Piano Trio.

Germán Marcano currently excels among the most important cellists in the Latin American music scene. His performances have received the best acclaims from musicians and the specialized critic, and his chamber music work with the Rios Reyna Quartet, has stand out as one of the most important in the continent.

A student with Maestro Stefan Popov and of the renowned British pedagogue William Pleeth, Marcano obtained his Bachelor of Music Degree in year 1983, at the prestigious Surrey University, England, where he was prized for the year’s best graduation concert. In 1979, he received by unanimity of the jury, the “Year’s Best Young Musician Award” granted by the Reading Symphony Orchestra, England, subsequently being invited to perform as a soloist with them, in addition to performing in several concerts in some cities of the United Kingdom. In the following years, he has been regularly invited as a soloist with ensembles such as the Surrey University Symphony Orchestra, the Guildford Camerata and the Surrey Philharmonia.

In year 1985, Marcano completed his cello’s superior studies at the Guildhall School of Music, in London, obtaining the “Premier Prix”, being the first cellist ever awarded with such distinction at said institution. He has taken part in master courses with Maestros Franz Helmerson, Mstislav Rostropovich, Raquel Adonaylo, Lynn Harrel and Janos Starker. Back in Venezuela in year 1985, Marcano occupied the principal cello chair with the Simón Bolívar Symphonic Orchestra, doing numerous tours and records productions with them. Since then, he has been a regular invited soloist with Venezuela’s main orchestras, counting among these invitations playing at the first concert performance of the “Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho” Symphonic Orchestra and the first performance in Venezuela of Elgar’s cello concerto. He has developed an important teaching work at the Simón Bolívar Conservatory, the Emil Friedman School, with the Simón Bolívar University Music Master Studies, and the Mozarteum Center’s Music School.

As a founding member of the Rios Reyna Quartet, he engaged in several national and international tours, a recording of Latin American string quartets and two performances jointly with the legendary Amadeus Quartet playing Johannes Brahms’ String Sextets.

In 1997, he traveled to the United States to continue studies with Maestro Uri Vardi. During his stay in this country, Marcano won the audition for the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s principal cello position, in Wisconsin, in addition to carrying out various concerts in Madison and Milwaukee as a cellist and a conductor. In May of 2001, Marcano obtained the degree of “Doctor in Music Arts” granted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the United States. Currently, his activities are split between his teaching (Simón Bolívar Conservatory, Emil Friedman School, Simón Bolívar University Music Master studies, and Mozarteum Center’s Music School) and playing, performing as a soloist with Venezuela’s main orchestras, as a member to the Camerata Criolla Ensemble, and conductor of the Simón Bolívar University Chamber Orchestra’s.

In the last years, Marcano has combined his instrument’s traditional repertoire with Latin American compositions of the past and present times, thus promoting this high quality but very little broadcasted repertoire. He has first auditioned works from renowned Venezuelan composers such as Modesta Bor and Inocente Carreño, as well as fist auditions in Venezuela from different Latin American composers as Leo Brower, Alfredo Rugeles, Juán Orrego Sálas, Alberto Ginastera and Calixto Álvarez. Recently, he performed for the first time with the Puerto Rican Symphony, the Concert for Cello and Orchestra of Puerto Rican composer Carlos Vázques, piece composed specially for Marcano. His catalog of Latin American works for cello was published in year 2004 by the Vicente Emilio Sojo Foundation (Funves), with whom ha has recently published an edition of the Suite for cello and piano by Venezuelan composer Modesta Bor. Last September Mr. Marcano released his first CD with his sister Clara, which includes works by Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy and others. A second CD, devoted to folk Venezuelan music, is already in the making. He was recently invited as a professor and lecturer to Grand Valley State University and Andrews University in Michigan.