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The personal stories behind two regional conductors.

Meet Ari Pelto with the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera and Carlos McMillan Fuentes, whose worldwide debut of Concerto da Requiem is a deeply personal journey.

Up next on Rob at Home.

Annc: And now Rob on the Road exploring Northern California.

Rob: Ari Pelto joins us now on Region Rising.

Ari, welcome.

Great to see you.

Ari: Great to see you.

Thanks for having me.

Rob: I'm thrilled to be talking to you today and thrilled that you are part of such a powerful message, and that is music.

Ari: I always feel that an orchestra and its community are a symbiotic relationship.

You know?

It's the moment of being in... in the theater together where the audience, 2000 people from the community are sitting, experiencing this thing together with an orchestra, that's their orchestra.

Ah... and identifying and -- with and enjoying and admiring the level of playing uh, from, you know, playing the pieces of the great masters that we play.

Um, I think that's incredibly important, and it's for me, art, music is the lifeblood of any community.

There are many, many things that make communities, uh, thrive; schools and health systems and infrastructure and you name it.

Uh but I think the arts and music specifically because I'm a musician and this is what I do, play a central role in the soul of any community.

And I'm...

I'm very happy to be at the center of that for for the Philharmonic.

Rob: Many, many different avenues are part of the infrastructure of a big city and a large region, a metro region.

Um, and those are building blocks for people to take steps forward.

Right?

All of the ones you mentioned.

But there are also those that transform and open your world to another world and to dreams and frankly, to recovery and therapy and group consciousness.

Everyone comes together and it's just... it's so powerful and I can't imagine how that feels for you.

Ari: Well, that's empowerment through transformation, right?

The idea that everybody comes to the theater or to their workplace or to sit in the first violin section or the cello section of an orchestra or to sit in an office or to sit on the bus.

Wherever you are, everybody comes with a feeling of needing to feel empowered.

And I am a great believer in the idea that through the transformation that music brings, that art brings, that a moment of joy brings is... is the empowering of... of every individual who experiences it.

And so I believe that in my own work with the orchestra individually, when we rehearse, when we play together, it's about empowering through transformation and I believe that for the audience as well.

Rob: I want to ask you personally, when did this become your joy center?

When did... when did music inspire you?

Ari: When I was about six years old.

I wanted to play soccer.

And, uh, my mom, who I think very much wanted a son who would be a musician, said, “You're perfectly welcome to play soccer, but you have to start playing violin as well.

” I was always basically, I always was a musician and, um, I wasn't, of course, always a conductor.

The conducting came later and has its own story.

But... but for me, as I said, long, long before I think I was...

I was far from a -- I wasn't a wunderkind violinist.

I wasn't a prodigy.

I worked very hard and I became quite a good violinist.

But, um, I like... like I said, I nonetheless identified myself as a musician early on.

Rob: I love that.

I love that.

And the violin became a part of you.

I mean, it becomes- Ari: Yes.

Rob: A part of you Ari: Yes.

Oh yes.

Rob: And more than just on your shoulder.

and in your hands, it is in your heart.

Ari: Oh yeah.

Rob: And I want to ask you about your transition or your... Um, maybe your growth or metamorphosis into conducting, because I understand that it came from something that may not have been what you were expecting.

Which in life, many times that's the way it goes.

Ari: It sure does.

Yeah.

I was 19... 19 or 20.

I was feeling like I was at the top of my game in violin and I was spending the summer in Spoleto in Italy, playing in the festival and noticed a little ridge on my thumb nail, which I didn't think that much of.

It was a funny little ridge on the nail.

Soon the nail began to have more ridges and divots.

And pretty soon I lost the nail.

And then I lost more nails.

I lost all the fingernails on my left hand.

And any violinist out there watching this will know you can't play violin without fingernails.

It turned out I had a form of psoriatic arthritis and had to stop playing.

And I was devastated.

Um, and so much so that although there was some indication with some serious medication, the fingernails would grow back.

I could probably play again in the future.

It was uncertain.

And the arthritis part of it also made it more complicated.

My... my flexibility wasn't there.

And, um... and I basically immediately changed course.

I...

I could not face the idea of the uncertainty of will I be able to go back to being a violinist on the level that I want to be?

And so I started studying, conducting straight away.

It felt like a natural shift.

It was a natural -- Of course, I mourned the loss of myself as a violinist, and I still do to this day, 30 years later... Um, more than 30 years later.

But conducting turned out to be probably the right choice for me.

And of course, I've been lucky enough to now have 30 years of conducting experience as a result of it.

Rob: I don't think that those two stories and by the way, thank you for sharing them with me.

And I honor that space that mourns the loss of the violin playing for you.

I also think that this is a both and... moment.

Ari: Mhmm... Likely.

That's a amazing story and... and a transition in life.

Um, and it really took you to the front of the stage.

Um, and I want to know some of your highlights.

What are the moments that have mattered the most to you that you have felt in your soul, conducting?

Ari: Wow, what a question.

You know, I would say that that, um, every time I get on the stage or in the pit, I spend a lot of time in the opera pit.

I have to say my... my career in the last 23 - 4 years has been especially oriented toward the opera house.

My debut at New York City Opera at Lincoln Center one Saturday night years ago, conducting La Traviata, walking into that pit and performing that night was a very special experience, which of course I remember years later.

For several years ago, in this area, I -- there used to be the Western Opera Theater, which was the touring arm of San Francisco Opera.

I don't know how many of your viewers might remember that that existed.

It's been now gone, sadly, for more than 20 years.

But I did two tours.

I did a Cosi fan tutte de tour, and I did a tour of La Boheme.

Bringing operas to a small towns across the country... That was a special joy.

I...

I loved that and cherish the memories of that.

So for me, oh, I mean, you know, performing at Lincoln Center or Kennedy Center or in the War Memorial Opera House, of course, those are... are wonderful, inspiring experiences.

And I relish those.

But so also are the experiences which you don't -- which are not touted as the, uh, the most, let's say, important moment in the... in the performing calendar, but ends up being a special... a special night, somehow special expression, a way of connecting with the audience that you didn't expect or with the musicians, uh, that... that... that came new um, each -- as we were talking about before -- Each performance is a unique experience and they all have their joys.

Rob: I want to ask you... clear everything we've talked about.

We've talked about highs and lows, high notes and low notes in life.

Um, but when it comes to you, what must be shared?

Ari: You know, music is about love.

Music teaches us love how to love, how to express love.

And I think that we live in a world where that is quite difficult to express, um, and to feel that we are allowed and able to express that openly with each other.

We get to see it on the big screen or on TV, and it's... and it's couched in some kind of storytelling from directors and actors and so on.

And we -- and so we witness it.

But I think that the expression of love between us, between each other, is what music gives us, tells us how to do.

And that's, I think, above all things love is what needs to be shared most.

Rob: There's healing power in those seats.

And, um, as we said in the beginning, empowering and transforming comes from those magical moments.

And I thank you for bringing them because they are so desperately needed and you are such a welcome to help our region rise.

Ari: Thank you so much.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ orchestra playing ] Rob: You are watching Concerto da Requiem by Carlos McMillan Fuentes, put on by Camerata California Chamber Choir and Orchestra.

♪♪♪ [ orchestra playing ] Joining me now on Robert at Home Region Rising is Carlos McMillan Fuentes.

Carlos, it's great to see you.

Thank you for being here.

Carlos: Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Rob: What a gift.

What a musician, what a talent.

We are so lucky to have you in this region, sharing your talent with so many people from young to older, um, all walks of life.

I love that about your music.

Tell me about... Tell me about, first of all, what you do and why you do it.

Carlos: Well, I am a pianist, a composer, a singer songwriter, a music educator and accompanist.

Um, I'm very fortunate in the sense that I have never had a job that wasn't related to music.

But even if I am not composing for a specific occasion, I'm composing.

I'm still writing music all the time.

I'm always, you know, ideas just pop in my head.

Inspiration just appears out of nowhere.

Anybody who is creative understands is the piano that it is.

It's not really us.

We're sort of the vessel for it.

You know, there's something that's sort of like beaming in teleporting or transmitting through us.

And my only job is to be open and to be available.

You know, so, like, when I was younger, I used to walk everywhere with a pad of manuscript paper, just blank paper with lines on it so that I could, you know write ideas and compose as I went.

Some of my favorite melodies are melodies that just...

I worked on when I was nowhere near a piano and maybe I was sitting in, you know, my brother's rehearsal for choir or something.

And I would just have this idea and I'd start sketching it out on manuscript paper.

And then later on, of course, take it to the piano, take it to my computer and cultivate it and work on it a little bit.

Rob: A lot of things you're talking about growing up.

I know that some of the things that happened along the way, found themself into a recent, um, beautiful concert that you just debuted, the worldwide debut of Concerto de Requiem and boy, what a gorgeous performance.

I tell you, I have -- Carlos, that I've heard people talk about the beauty in Concerto da Requiem.

And the beauty in it came from some painful experiences Carlos: Where Concerto da Requiem was born was when I was in high school and a friend of mine who I hadn't known very long, but, uh, we bonded and we had a lot of mutual friends and he was just a really wonderful, beautiful, light hearted person.

I found out one day just, you know, I sort of woke up to the news that he had committed suicide and taken his own life.

And for me, hearing that somebody my own age was gone, you know, just like that, you know, just that... that was just gone.

And to know that it had been at their own hand was really, really devastating.

You know, it was just something that was really hard for me to process and to understand and to see the grief and how that manifested amongst my friends and amongst other people.

It really it moved me in a way where I felt like I needed to do something.

And I didn't know what it was that I needed to do, but it came to me that I should transform, Concerto Pathétique, this piece that was originally just for piano and orchestra, this expression of... of... of light and dark, I should actually create a requiem instead.

You know, in the tradition of Mozart and all those guys that I mentioned before, Brahms and Berlioz, and Faure all these incredible composers, I wanted to create a piece that would be a requiem as a sort of commemoration of him, but then also as an expression of grief.

And what I somehow, you know, I didn't -- again, there's a lot of naivete involved, I think, with... with um -- and, you know, some people say it's like ego or like all these... these... these things that artists go through with grandiosity where they're just kind of, you know, they have these ideas that are so big and they don't really know how it's all going to come together, but they just know that it is.

I decided that I was going to combine a piano concerto with a requiem.

Rob: Yeah all what you just said about the things getting in your... in your brain about what... What you said about grandiose or ego -- Those are just... those are just words that... that cloud, a calling that that like block a blessing.

They just stand in the way, get rid of that, just blow it all out and do it.

Carlos: You're exactly right.

Rob: You know?

Carlos: You're exactly right.

And I eventually feel like I learned that lesson through writing this piece all these years later, because I -- you know, up until the piece was performed explaining to somebody what it even is has been really impossible, you know, because I can tell somebody, well, it's a combination between a piano concerto and a requiem.

Well, first off, if you're not a classical music aficionado, you're not somebody who listens to those genres.

I've already lost you.

Rob: So break it down.

What is it?

Carlos: So a concerto is a piece of music that features a soloist, and they are usually accompanied by an orchestra, some kind of ensemble.

And then you have a requiem mass, which is a completely different genre entirely.

A requiem mass is a choral work, often usually a choral work that is a setting of the... the requiem mass from the, you know, the Latin mass for the dead, the Catholic mass for the dead.

Rob: It's so interesting because when I hear you say this, it sounds like the story of what you told me from childhood to losing your grandfather and then your uncle and everyone's shifting roles... Carlos: Yes.

Rob: -- in your family.

Right?

And it sounds like -- And then your friend.

Carlos: Yeah.

Rob: it sounds like all of it and found a beautiful way to be expressed for you, as well as those watching and listening and being moved themselves.

Carlos: Yeah.

Rob: Do you agree?

Carlos: I do, I do.

I think that my attraction to the orchestra is the same as with the pipe organ.

It's that there's so many different sounds, there's so many different ways to be expressive.

It's like, you know, combining different instruments and colors creating new timbres, and new new kinds of expression is never ending.

There's never ending possibilities where that's concerned.

And so you can take an orchestra and you can create chaos.

And indeed, there are moments, even in Concerto da Requiem, where I'm really throwing everything at each other at the same time.

But it's never meant to be grotesque.

It's never meant to be just ugly for the sake of ugly, you know, experimentation or pushing just for the sake of making people feel unnerved.

It's always in the name of tension and release, right?

In the name of storytelling.

Because my life experience has consistently been that if I'm in the middle of a rough patch, that it's not the end of the story, right?

Like, it means that I have to keep going because the victory is on the other side of that.

Rob: It's just a bridge.

Rob: It's a bridge in the song.

Carlos: Yeah.

Yeah, indeed.

That... that... that has continually been a thread in my life is that a lot of times things get the roughest right before a breakthrough, you know, right before things are about to open up in some beautiful way.

Suddenly it's everything is being thrown at me.

Things I could never have even imagined, um, you know, heartbreak that just came out of nowhere.

And it's like everything was fine yesterday.

Like, why is this like this now?

And on the brink of this moment, You know, on the eve of this performance, on the eve of you know, some... some milestone in my life oftentimes is when things get the most challenging.

I think that's something that a lot of people can relate to.

Rob: Absolutely.

And one of the things I love about your journey is that while those trials have come, that you have something not just inner growth, but outer to show from it.

Um, with music, it's you can take some really difficult circumstances in your life and... and... oddly help others free themselves from that same spot.

Circles back to coming back to freeing yourself as well.

Carlos: I really appreciate that.

I really appreciate that you said that because I hadn't really thought about it from that perspective.

My hope has always been that, you know, the things that I have been through, the experiences that I've had and the lessons that I've learned, my hope is always that if I can just... if I can help one person answer that Emily Dickinson poem, you know, the keep one heart from breaking or, you know, whatever it is, like if I can just just make one person's life a little bit easier for sharing my experience and... and how I was able to overcome then I'm good.

Like I feel like I've lived a life worth living and I'm happy and I'm satisfied with that.

And I didn't -- I knew that writing Concerto da Requiem, was helping me.

I knew that it was sort of my therapy and my way of processing things.

But I guess it comes back to that whole idea of just being the vessel, you know, as a composer like I...

I -- the edicts in my brain was right, you know, it was just write, you know?

Dont worry -- It was just write.

Don't worry about how long it's going to be... Write.

Don't worry about the orchestra, write.

You know?

Like just do the thing and then here on the other end of it, you know, all of the pieces of the puzzle somehow came together.

And not only did they just come together, but it worked.

Like it actually worked.

Like the thing happened and it happened in a way everybody felt good about their performance as from the musician side.

And the audience response has been really overwhelmingly positive, which -- Rob: Thats a big deal Carlos, because, you know, the vessel still during the creation and the flowing of it all.

Right?

I mean, it it still takes on water.

And -- Carlos: That's true.

Rob: You still have to go through the same things while you're creating.

And yet you can't let the experiences sink the ship or you won't be able to release this beautiful new healing that you've done with Concerto da Requiem and that so many others have been able to heal through as well.

What are you going to do with it next?

Carlos: Well, you know, there's this sort of old adage where where composers are concerned that like getting a piece premiered is easy, but it's that second performance that's the one that's really hard.

Now, there's -- Rob: So, Carnegie Hall?

Carlos: -- disclaimer here.

The premiere is not actually always easy, especially when you're writing for orchestra.

It is not always easy to do that.

It's much easier -- In fact, the entire time I was in college, my professors would always encourage me and other composers to write chamber music, write pieces for smaller ensemble, write pieces for... for, you know, two violins or something, because you can get lots of performances from those pieces and you learn a lot from having those pieces performed.

But I was very sort of obstinate and just was like, I'm going to write for orchestra its what I want to do, you know Like this is where I feel the most free and the most at home.

And what... what I found is that, you know, opportunities have materialized when I've done the work.

So all this to just say that... that now that the piece has been performed once and there is a recording that is being mixed and mastered and all of these sorts of things right now, now there's this sort of a record, you know, it's much easier to get the piece performed a second time because somebody can actually wrap their brain around it.

Like just as I said before, explaining to somebody what a concerto and a requiem are, is already you know, you already have to know what that is to even get to that point.

It still doesn't mean anything to say that there's a requiem mass that has a piano part going through it.

But when you hear it, you know, with music, this is how it is.

If you actually hear the music, you get it.

It's like, “Oh, I understand.

” Now that there's a recording and that there's a score and there's printed parts and all of these things are available.

For me, the next step is to really start to share it with other people, right?

And make sure that that the recording is disseminated in a way that anybody who wants to experience it can do it, but then also start contacting orchestras and choirs and groups globally, as far as I'm concerned, and just pitch the work, see if there's somebody who is interested in performing it again.

Rob: It is so powerful to sit and watch and feel you sharing your talents.

And I am better off for it.

And I know our region is too.

So, Carlos McMillan Fuentes, artist, composer, pianist, singer, songwriter, all of the above and more.

We thank you for being on Rob at Home here.

Thank you so much.

Carlos: It's an absolute joy and I look forward to continuing to share my music with the region.

I have been so enveloped in circle by love here.

Rob: That's wonderful.

Thank you so much, Carlos, and thank you for joining us here on PBS KVIE.

We will see you next time right here on Rob on the Road.

Thanks for joining us.

You can watch when you want.

And RobOnTheRoad.Org Annc: Murphy Austin, Adam Schoenfeld, LLP, focusing on business law and commercial litigation is proud to support Rob on the Road Region Rising.

More information available at MurphyAustin.com