The Puerto Rico Music Conservatory [Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico] held a concert last nigh to help fund scholarships for international students. Members of the conservatory have also contacted various consulates based in Puerto Rico with the purpose of developing this scholarship fund, the Pablo Casals Scholarship Program.
The Conservatory has seen a marked increase in applications by students from abroad and, in many cases, these students need help to defray costs for their coursework and lodging. The Pablo Casals Scholarship Program would offer financial aid to talented youth from Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The institution currently hosts students from Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic. Recent graduates among the international pool include students from Chile, Argentina, and Spain.
The recent two-hour long, fund-raising concert featured international students organized in duos, trios, or groups that interpreted a repertoire of pieces representing their respective countries’ musical folklore as well as classical and contemporary works. The concert was organized by Oskar Espina, Luis Marín, and Manuel Teide. Eutimia Santiago, director of Admissions for the university, indicated that the concert was proof of “the cultural enrichment that these international students bring to the Conservatory.”
[Pablo Casals (Pau Carlos Salvador Defilló) was born in 1876 in Catalonia and died 1973 in Puerto Rico. He was a great cellist, conductor, and composer. Casals left Spain after the outbreak the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and he settled for many years in the French village of Prades, on the Spanish border, and later, in 1956, made his permanent residence in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where his mother was born. The annual Festival Casals was inaugurated there in 1957 and is still held today.]
For more information on the Conservatory, you may call (787) 751-0160 or visit http://www.cmpr.edu/
For full article (in Spanish), see http://www.elnuevodia.com/porlosestudiantesinternacionales-636790.html
For more on Pablo Casals, see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Casals-Pablo.htm
