Pallotti Music School to showcase talents in concert
It is said that music soothes the savage beast and so Belizeans will be treated to a musical extravaganza featuring the best of violin, cello, and guitar this coming weekend by the Pallotti Music School. News Five’s Marion Ali previews the coming attractions.
Marion Ali, Reporting
This institution has made a name for itself as one of the best music schools in the country. Now the Pallotti Music School is teaming up with a group of professors from the University of Rhode Island in the U.S. to put off a musical show that they say will be the best yet.
Daniela Gongora, Music Professor, University of Rhode Island
“We have some classical, we have a tango. Shhh, I shouldn’t have said that. That was supposed to be a surprise. But we have some folk, at least one folk song that we’re trying to put in. Concert night, we’ll definitely hear each group from the music school perform a small piece then we’ll have ourselves perform three pieces, piano quintet; that’s with the quartet and the piano, a horn concerto accompanied by ourselves and featuring the horn. And we have three of my students from Provident who are going to be playing with the students and they’ll be playing solos with the students from here together.”
Sister Mary Therese, Treasurer, Pallotti Music School
“Our audiences are getting bigger, they’re growing and people are appreciating the music.”
And appreciating the music and each other’s talents is what Director of Pallotti’s Music School, Colville Young Junior, says both visitors and locals have been doing during rehearsals.
Colville Young Jr., Director, Pallotti Music School
“It’s been very beneficial for both teachers as well as students. We hone in on things like technique and things like working with groups, working with young people and so forth as well as having a look at the students.”
But while the visiting musicians are sharing techniques, the music school also has their eyes on bigger things.
Colville Young Jr.
“We do need to expand. There is a huge need to expand. We have so many teachers here and the demand is huge. We always have a higher demand … more students coming in than we have teachers to teach them. So what happens is that we’re fast running out of classrooms, rooms that we can teach in. you know we, at the moment, share our classrooms with the high school so that we do have that problem. The fundraising is towards trying to get a building done in which we can—something adequate enough that we can have all the teachers and students properly housed in proper classrooms and so forth.”
The cost of the new building can run up to two million dollars but the institution is striving for at least a small fraction to get things off the ground.
Sister Mary Therese,
“Right now we have a hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars towards our building but we cannot start until we have three hundred thousand. The total cost of the building will be about a million, maybe two million by the time we start. It will be for teaching all kinds of music to Belizeans and we often get artists visiting. We’ll be teaching folk music, all kinds of music. People will learn how to write music, theory, we plan on doing all the instruments.”
Marion Ali
“So it will be able to accommodate a full orchestra?”
Sister Mary Therese
“Yes, we’re planning on having a school building and a concert hall.”
The concert hall, which is projected to take another three years to construct, is expected to take music lessons to a whole new level in Belize. But according to Ann Danis, a music professor at the University of Rhode Island, if what she has heard so far is any indication, the music Pallotti students play is impressive.
Ann Danis, Music Professor, University of Rhode Island, U.S.A.
“We heard the students for just a few moments. We were so impressed and they’re so open to learning and they’re just wonderful kids and they have been very well trained and I think what’s happening here in Belize is extraordinary.”
Reporting for News Five, Marion Ali.
The concert will take place on Friday night at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts beginning at seven thirty p.m. Tickets are available at the Bliss Box Office, CY’s Music and students of the Pallotti Music School.
