- Hey Jose, welcome to AHA.

I'm so excited to speak to you again.

- Oh, thank you.

It's wonderful to be here.

- Well, last time we spoke, you had this amazing international choral festival working with high schoolers in the region.

And how did it go?

Can you give us a little bit of background?

- Oh, I tell you, you know there was so much anticipation built into that.

It was nine years of planning for that.

And I can, you know, enough to say that it was beyond our best expectations.

We're so happy with the result.

We had 150 students from across the United States and Canada.

We had a world class faculty.

We had two world premieres.

This festival was all funded by a grant that paid full tuition room and board for each participant students.

It's basically unheard of.

Albany Pro Musica went there to perform together with, we had other three visiting choirs including a professional choir from Canada another choir from Puerto Rico, from my homeland.

So, you know, it was fantastic.

- Now, could you give us a little bit of background?

Like, how did you find these students?

- So we advertised nationally, internationally, actually.

So there was great interest.

We went to all these conferences, choral conferences and there was great interest because of the quality of the educational offering that we had and the quality of the faculty.

- And did you get any feedback from the students?

Or any, like, and how did they feel after this?

- We did, and it's hard to get to the last one.

There's so much that they decided to write.

They were very generous in their feedback.

And they basically said this, for many of them this was the best musical experience of their life.

It's planned to happen every other year.

And the next one will be here in the Capital region, so stay tuned.

We're going to give more information about that soon.

- Oh, yay, that's gonna be really great for our youth who wanna be involved.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Love those opportunities.

Well I'm glad that that was really successful.

Was there anything else in the current season or previous season that you want to highlight for us that's, like, successful or something that you feel really joyful about that got done?

- Well, you know, the previous season was fabulous.

We were very happy with the response from our audience.

But there's something very special that happened.

We were able to perform a work for the first time here in the Capital region, it's called "Star Song" by our Composer of Residence, then, Dr. Bradley Ellingboe from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And this work, we were also able to record it.

So we created a professional recording.

As we speak, I'm in the process of the final editing of that.

So we are soon going to announce the launching of that recording.

- I know you're having your upcoming season happening and I know that you're, that Albany Pro Musica is trying to be more experimental and outside the box.

So, what are some things that y'all are doing to create that atmosphere of experimental outside of the box, more diversity within your upcoming season?

You wanna give us a little bit of overview?

- Perhaps I would say that what makes Albany Pro Musica unique in what we offer is that every concert becomes an experience for people.

There's a narrative into our concerts.

People come to our concerts knowing that they can expect to be moved.

In fact, the motto of Albany Pro Musica is choral music that captures the human spirit.

So we work very hard for that to happen at every concert.

So in this coming season, people will experience that from the very first concert in which we're going to be celebrating called "Composers in Residence".

We invite composers to be in residence with us.

In that way, we extend the legacy of choral music, we extend the legacy of these composers.

And Albany Pro Musica is, in a way also celebrating my own legacy because this is, by the way, my 10th anniversary season.

- Congratulations.

- So, yes.

So everybody is celebrating that and I am, as well.

I'm so happy to be here.

In this concert, we're going to celebrate those composers, but in particularly, we're going to be celebrating our honorary Composer of Residence, Steve Murray, who is a very, very talented composer and who is with us every year composing.

And, in fact, his music will be so much fun.

People will find humor in some of those pieces.

In addition to that, you know, that repertoire goes from classic choral repertoire, to jazz, to Bossa Nova.

So it is going to be a lot of fun.

- Very variety, of many varieties.

- Then after that, we have the "Many Moods of Christmas" which is the favorite of our audience.

It's hard to get there.

People get tickets early.

You could say it gets sold very rapidly.

And then after that, in March, we're going to have a program called "Seascapes".

The theme is on the oceans.

It's because there's a work that is called "Oceana" by a composer named Farias.

And for that, we are bringing a wonderful ensemble that specializes in music from Latin America.

This work is based in a poem of Pablo Neruda and it's in Spanish.

So we're going to be singing in English for the first half of the concert, but we finished with this business in Spanish.

And it's very unusual.

It features a Charanga guitar and viola.

So it's very, very unique and a lot of fun.

And then to close, I have decided to climb Mount Everest.

So what that means is this.

You know, in the choral world we have what you would consider milestone repertoire.

So I decided that this year being my 10th anniversary I wanted to finish with a work that for all of us in the choral music, we consider Mount Everest because of the complexity, because of how difficult it is but also because of the incredible beauty.

So I'm talking of Johann Sebastian Bach "Mass in B Minor" which we are going to perform with an ensemble of period instruments coming from Boston and New York City.

So it's spectacular.

The chorus is very excited.

The audience is already asking about it because it's a phenomenal work.

- That's amazing.

And why is this important for you to reach that Mount Everest height?

Is this because your 10 year anniversary or is this something that you just wanna reach in your career?

Or is this just for fun?

- That sounds like a word, like a question coming from a psychiatrist.

- I know, right?

Like, tell me.

- So let me, let me try to answer that.

I guess it's the nature of the work that I do.

It's the way I see it.

Every year you want to make it more challenging.

You want to make it more exciting.

It's also the result of a work of 10 years.

In other words, it's not the kind of work that I would attempt to do with my group during the first year although I found a very good choir when I came here.

But you want to have a chorus that responds to your own artistic vision, and that takes time.

And so it's 10 years of training that we have had.

And I think the codas, even though they did it before with my predecessor, for the vision that I have for this particular work, the group is absolutely ready.

This was the time for them to do it.

- So you mentioned the experience, the immersion piece to it.

So why for Albany Pro Musica, why is that piece so important for audiences to be immersed and have this beautiful experience with these complex pieces that you're putting together?

- One of the most wonderful characteristics of the music that we do is that you find yourself performing pieces that were written three centuries, four centuries ago, or pieces that are being written now.

And when people come to a live performance you want to make sure, or I want to make sure that they receive an experience that is memorable that they will remember.

Because if it's a matter of just playing or singing a piece of music, you could get that from the radio or from the TV, or you could get that from a CD.

So to make the effort that people make actually in going into a concert, I want to make sure that it's special, that it's something that they will remember, something that will touch their sensitivity, their lives.

So when I put together a concert it's almost like writing a composition.

It's because I think of a narrative or a story that I want to tell, I think very much on the problems we are going through as a society.

For instance, we had a concert in the previous season that was called "I Dream A World".

And it was, you know, on that idea that we should all be in a world where everyone is accepted, regardless of the color of their skin or who they are.

The arts offer a wonderful opportunity for us to reflect on who we are and who we want to be without being preachy, without telling people in their faces this is what you need to do.

- Exactly.

- Rather to, to give them opportunity to reflect and to perhaps think of problems in a different way and provide some inspiration that will provoke change.

Otherwise, then why do we do what we do?

If it doesn't matter, if it doesn't provoke that change?

I will not be as excited as I am on my job if I think it's not that relevant.

- Yeah, I mean, the last 10 years, I think you're gonna have that passionate piece.

Passion truly is a catalyst to change specifically within the arts.

Well, thank you Jose.

It was amazing talking to you today.

- Thank you, it's always a pleasure.