Conductors Stefano Vignati and Jorge Perez-Gomez say the only way to teach music is to teach its meaning.
"It's not an abstraction where you come and look at notes and you play," Perez-Gomez said. "Our real job as teachers is to help students make a relation between the meaning of the piece and their own life experience. It's the only way it works. It's the only way music makes sense."
Perez-Gomez, who conducts UNM's Symphony Orchestra, said he brought Vignati here from Rome to give students the opportunity to learn and respond to another approach. Vignati, artistic director of the New Operafestival di Roma, said he is accustomed to conducting professional orchestras in Europe, but students pose a different challenge.
"It's almost like a school for a conductor because you have to be very precise and there's certain things that have to be perfect in order for them to happen," he said. "For professionals, it's almost a routine. With young musicians, you have to break the fear, get them to relax so they enjoy themselves."
Vignati said though the students are at all different levels of experience and training, their gusto and spirit more than make up for it.
"I love very much to work with the students because there is another enthusiasm, another pleasure, another power, another energy," he said. "They are younger, more eager. The music ends up a little different."
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Vignati came to UNM in 1998 on a similar unofficial exchange. He and Perez-Gomez have known each other for seven years.
The conductors were trained in Franco Ferrara's school of technique. Perez-Gomez studied with Ferrara, but Vignati hadn't started his training until after Ferrara died.
Still, Perez-Gomez said no two conductors ever interpret a piece in exactly the same way, and a visiting conductor will make changes to tempo and the feeling of the work.
"I prepare the students to have flexibility for when he (Vignati) arrives because conductors will always make things a little bit different," he said. "I prefer to make them as flexible as possible, to know the music to the point where they can react to whatever he wishes."
The orchestra will perform three pieces Thursday night, two romantic compositions addressing, as Perez-Gomez said, "maximum expression. The idea of dealing with nature and the obsession in our relationship to nature."
Vignati said he will offer expertise as an Italian conductor on one piece in particular, the overture to "La Gazza Ladra," an Italian opera by Gioacchino Rossini.
Vignati said it is generally up to the composers to interpret a piece and to communicate that to the students, but it is never that cut and dry.
"Really, we do it together, musicians and conductors. We interpret the work together," he said.
What: UNM Symphony Orchestra with guest
conductor Stefano Vignati
When: Tonight, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Popejoy Hall
Price: $3-$7
Ticket Info: 851-5050
