News from Skidmore

Interview for Skidmore College
March 16, 2007

Guitarist Jorge Caballero, the first guitarist to win the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg International Competition and the youngest winner as well, will play a solo recital at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 22, in Filene Recital Hall at Skidmore College.

Caballero's performance is part of the Sterne Virtuoso Series at Skidmore, which presents visiting guest artists throughout the academic year. General admission tickets to the concert are $5; students and seniors, $2.

In addition to the Sterne Virtuoso performance, which will focus on baroque music, Caballero will offer a master class for guitar students at the college.

The guitarist said his concert program would include transcriptions of music by Bach as well as some music written originally for lute. "That will give me the opportunity to talk about the lute, which was quite a prominent instrument at the time," he noted.

He said he would include other types of music on the program, too.

Born to a musical family in Lima, Peru, Caballero won the Naumburg Competition at age 19, leading him into a U.S. concert tour. He went on to earn both bachelor's and master's degrees at the Manhattan School of Music, where he says he had his best experiences in music theory and analysis classes.

"I had the most interesting ideas [during music theory class] that I could translate into sound," he said recently. "It's much more interesting than someone saying, 'Play this way'."

Now a visiting member of the faculty at Brooklyn College, Caballero said he is finding that he enjoys the academic side of music. "What's important to me is that I give students a thought that can take them further," he said.

Caballero has played with a long list of major orchestras, collaborated with singers, and is a member of an ensemble made up of string quartet plus guitar.

"I like the variety, but personally I think playing chamber music is the greater challenge, requiring you to be very free and flexible with your instrument," he said. "For classical musicians, flexibility is difficult: you have to be able to bend yourself around different circumstances."

At this point, Caballero is "on good terms" with his guitar, although he admits there was a time, more than five years ago, when he found his playing a struggle.

"It's how you're emotionally feeling about your playing, and other things, too. I never felt that I was one who had the greatest gift at playing," he said, but acknowledged that other people thought he was extremely gifted.

"I felt my hands were weak," he said. "But I had a good analytical mind, which helped me learn to be patient, and to work toward the improvements I wanted.

"Successful playing is the result of following certain steps," he said. "I'm better friends now with my instrument: you begin to understand your craft."

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