Fermin Segarra - Contributed

Fermin Segarra of San Juan, Puerto Rico, has been invited to conduct the second concert season of the Jamaica Young People Symphony by the symphony's board of directors, through the sponsorship of the Culture, Health Arts Sprts and Education (CHASE) Fund.

His interaction with the symphony's members, aged nine to 26 years old, will begin with a one-week workshop and culminate in two concerts at the Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Drive, St. Andrew, on Saturday, September 15 and Sunday, September 16.

Segarra conducts a 60-piece orchestra in San Juan and is fluent in English and Spanish. He teaches the cello at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and is a cellist with the Puerto Rico Symphony. He has been working with student orchestras for over 15 years and is known to have positive leadership qualities, dedication and rapport with young students.

He has expressed understanding of the efforts to maintain a new young people symphony.

Education is the key

He explained that, in Puerto Rico, "the key to our development has been education. In the late '50s through the efforts of Casals (the late world famous cellist) and a senator named Ernesto Ramos Antoini, two things happened that planted the seeds for the orchestra we now have. Casals promoted and worked for the founding of the Puerto Rico Conservatory, the Casals Festival and the Puerto Rico Symphony. Senator Ramos wrote legislation in the late '40s that founded the Free Schools of Music, where I teach".

Many musical opportunities now exist in Puerto Rico and Segarra further explained that "in the beginning the PR Symphony was mainly made up of people from the mainland (United States). Over the years, the Free Schools and the Conservatory have developed talent to the point where over 90 per cent of the symphony members are from Puerto Rico. Many of the newest members of the symphony are former cello and orchestra students of mine. My students now teach, and I see many of them as audience members at the symphony".

Segarra has expressed a desire to contribute to the development of orchestra members in Jamaica.

He says he is looking forward to talking to teachers in order to share what he knows about the development of music in his country "with others who might want to listen".