Published at 2:02 am. Updated at 5:00 am.
What was more important in the life of conductor Rafael Payare than music?
Education.
The musical director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (OSM) would not have become a great conductor without the public education system in his home country of Venezuela. He discovered music late in life through El Sistema, an orchestra program in public high schools in Venezuela.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
The OSM conductor sits with our columnist in the Leméac restaurant
“Without El Sistema, music would never have become a passion in my life,” a relaxed and friendly Rafael Payare told me over coffee (and a good meal) at the Leméac restaurant in Montreal that September afternoon, the day after the concert opened OSM season.
Our maestro does not have the typical background of a conductor: he never touched a musical instrument before the age of 14. Fascinated by his older brother who plays music, he enrolls in El Sistema, a unique program. It’s free. It is open to all young people (in participating schools). There are no auditions. Would you like to be part of the orchestra? You are part of it. As simple as that.
“They provided free musical instruments and teachers and we played in an orchestra almost immediately afterwards. At first the sound was terrible! But we did something very important: we rehearsed every day at school – there was no homework in the evenings – and sometimes even on Saturdays. »
Equal opportunities is an important value of El Sistema.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Rafael Payare’s career as a conductor is not an ordinary one; he didn’t touch a musical instrument until he was 14 years old.
Regardless of our level, we had the best teachers. I remember visiting chefs like Claudio Abbado [qui a dirigé La Scala à Milan et l’Orchestre philharmonique de Berlin]. We experienced music at a high level. It eventually gets into your system.
Rafael Payare, musical director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
Rafael Payare has been the musical director of the OSM since autumn 2022 and would like to give unforgettable concerts in his adopted home. But he also wants to do more for music education in Montreal. By, among other things, being inspired by what he had experienced. “An El Sistema à la Montréal,” he summarizes.
Since 2016, the OSM has been offering music lessons for kindergarten children at the Saint-Rémi School in Montreal in collaboration with the University of Montreal and the Pointe-de-l’Île school service center. -North. What are Rafael Payare and the OSM preparing for us? The chef, with infectious enthusiasm and distinctive hair, clearly has something on his mind.
“I’m not sure I can talk about it, we’re working on the project. maestro [Kent] Nagano carried out this extraordinary project in Montreal North with piano, drums, violins and a choir. It’s a very nice foundation. [pour d’autres projets], like having a full orchestra in more than one school, like El Sistema. »
My dream would be to have different orchestras in different parts of the city and bring them together into one large children’s orchestra during the Klassik Spree. These are my dreams.
Rafael Payare
For Rafael Payare, music is part of education. But education is much more than music. It is the thirst for learning. Work. Discipline. Humility.
Also – especially – for someone at the top of his class like him, who graduated from secondary school at 15, partly because he skipped a year of primary school. He had spent the summer reading the books of his mother, an elementary school teacher.
My parents taught me work, discipline and humility. My mother always said, “Whether you have trouble in school or not, you have to try hard and be serious.” Doing your job well, no matter the circumstances, is still a lesson for me to this day.
Rafael Payare
At 15, with a diploma from El Sistema in hand, he joined the country’s national youth orchestra, but felt he had too much “free time.” That’s why he simultaneously studied chemical engineering at university for two years. If he hadn’t chosen music, he would probably have become a chemical engineer, he says. Or perhaps an architect (he completed a university year in architecture while playing in the Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra in Caracas).
But the call of music is too strong. And Rafael Payare can count on the advice of his mentor José Antonio Abreu, founder of El Sistema, another leader with diverse interests (he was a musician and an economics professor at the university). Rafael Payare still remembers this conversation in which his mentor suggested that he turn to conducting. “I was in his office talking about my instrument [le cor], and he talked to me about conducting. He was a visionary, he saw 15 years ahead. »
José Antonio Abreu had the eye. Two decades later, Rafael Payare is one of the few El Sistema graduates to have made a name for themselves as an international conductor.
After winning an international competition for young conductors in 2012, Rafael Payare has a series of appointments as a conductor: in Northern Ireland, in San Diego, then in Montreal in September 2022.
Rafael Payare, his wife Alisa Weilerstein, an internationally known cellist, and their two seven-and-a-half-year-old daughters have been living in Montreal since the summer of 2022. The family lived in Berlin for a long time, and in San Diego since the pandemic.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
The native Venezuelan has lived in the metropolis since 2022.
I love Montreal, a fantastic city that reminds me a lot of Berlin. You can hear several languages on the street and the people are very friendly.
Rafael Payare
What surprised him about Montreal? we ask him.
“How much Montrealers care about their orchestra! They do that more than in Berlin. It is only comparable to Vienna. »
I can hardly hide my amazement at this almost too good to be true thing. The conductor of the OSM clearly sees that I find it difficult to believe that Montreal is more committed to its orchestras than Berlin, the world capital of classical music.
“There are nine major orchestras and three opera houses in Berlin,” he explains. So there is not that much connection to the individual orchestras.
There are two major orchestras in Montreal: the OSM and the Orchester Métropolitain, led by our national treasure Yannick Nézet-Séguin, musical director of the Met in New York and one of the greatest conductors in the world.
“The first time I met Yannick [l’hiver dernier lors du passage de l’OSM à Carnegie Hall à New York]I had the impression that we had known each other for a long time. He welcomed me to Montreal. We text each other sometimes. There is no rivalry between us. And then I lived in Berlin [avec tous ses orchestres]. It’s much better for people to have options. It’s a bit like with food: it’s better to have several good restaurants and different types of cuisine. »
Chef Rafael Payare wants as many Montrealers as possible to enjoy his comforting dishes.
“The world is going through so much. If we can help people dream a little during a concert, live in another world at this time, give them a little peace of mind… Music has the ability to change moods and make people more receptive. We see it in babies who have no prejudices and don’t know what the world is like. They put on music and their mood changes. »
Rafael Payare knows something about it. Like all parents of young children, he experienced and continues to experience crises at home. Dear parents from Montreal, our maestro has found the solution: play the second movement of Mozart’s 29th, 33rd, 34th or 41st symphony. It works (almost) every time. “As soon as there is a crisis, I press the button on my phone to play a clip and the screaming stops,” he swears.
We could give the same advice to many adults in a society where fear is increasing and tolerance is decreasing. “Our concentration span is getting shorter and shorter. It worries me a little, but maybe it’s just a phase. I am an optimist, I believe in society. »
Questionnaire without filters
Coffee and me: I love coffee. I take it three to four times a day. A cappuccino, a cortado or an espresso macchiato.
The last book I read: After his death, I reread Laughable Loves by the writer Milan Kundera [l’été dernier].
A person who inspires me: The doctor José Antonio Abreu, founder of El Sistema
Qualities I like in others: Honesty and loyalty
People, dead or alive, that I would like to bring to the table: Mozart was so easy to compose that it would be entertaining to ask him questions. I have always been fascinated by the actor Anthony Hopkins. To complete our table we need someone a little darker like the composer Dmitri Shostakovich. I thought of Gustav Mahler, but he would probably be too neurotic, especially with Mozart in front of him.
Who is Rafael Payare?
The native Venezuelan has been musical director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra since 2022. He is under contract with OSM until August 2027.
The 43-year-old is also music director of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
He speaks five languages (Spanish, English, German, Italian, French).