Anthony LeRoy Glise, visits Puerto Rico VI String Festival

The prominent guitarist, musicologist and composer Anthony LeRoy Glise is visiting Puerto Rico as part of the guests at the VI String Festival held at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music from Friday, April 5 to Sunday, April 7.

On Friday, April 5, Maestro Glise offered a magnificent lecture to the students in which he talked about the various physical and emotional aspects to consider when performing a musical work and included techniques for managing anxiety on stage. The teacher expressed that he is very happy to be in Puerto Rico for the first time and very generously, he has donated several of his musical productions to the collection of the Conservatory's library, the Amaury Veray Library.

The public of Puerto Rico will be able to enjoy the premiere of one of Maestro Glise's compositions titled “Ukrainian Suite” and which will be performed at the faculty concert to be held on Saturday, April 6 at 3:30 pm In addition to this work, there will be a premiere the lullaby “La ermita del pino” for violin and harp by Verónica Rodríguez Pellegrini. This concert will also have a collection of songs by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff arranged for violin and piano, as well as a transcription for solo violin of “Memories of the Alhambra” by Francisco Tárrega. The program will be completed by works by Caroline Lizote, Jorge Morel and Paul Desenne. In this concert, Chilali Hugo and Elisa Torres will participate as soloists on the harp, Anthony Glise on the guitar, Kaila Potts Smith on the viola, Luis Miguel Rojas on the cello and the violinists Miroslav Hristov, Omar Velázquez and Francisco Cabán.

The opening concert of the Festival was held on the afternoon of Friday, April 5, and was given by the department's outstanding students, who performed works by Bach, Brahms and Schumann.

The Festival will continue on Sunday, April 7 with a concert at 4:00 pm that will feature the Festival Orchestra, made up of the faculty and students of the strings department. The program will begin with Dmitri Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony. This work, an arrangement for string orchestra of his own Quartet Number 8, is dedicated to the victims of fascism and war. Then, the work “Maple, Mountains, and Lakes” by maestro Alberto Rodríguez will be premiered under the baton of maestro Francisco Cabán. The work, written especially for this occasion, is inspired by a trip to Lake George in New York, where the composer recreates his impressions of nature, as well as the popular culture of the place.