Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music

con­ser­va­to­rio-de-musi­ca-de-puer­to-rico

Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music

After the suc­cess of the first Casals Fes­ti­val in 1957, State Sen­a­tor Ernesto Ramos Antoni­ni pro­posed the cre­ation of the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music and the Puer­to Rico Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra.  Puer­to Rico had had sev­er­al sym­pho­ny orches­tras before, going back to the 19th cen­tu­ry, but they had not been gov­ern­ment spon­sored and even­tu­al­ly dis­ap­peared.  But this time, with the back­ing of a world known fig­ure like Pablo Casals and the finan­cial sup­port of the Puer­to Rican gov­ern­ment, the project was a success.

The orig­i­nal Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music was inau­gu­rat­ed in 1960 on Franklin D. Roo­sevelt Ave., across the street from where the “Fomen­to” and “Tele­mu­n­do” build­ings stand today.  “Fomen­to” is the local Span­ish moniker for the “Puer­to Rico Indus­tri­al Devel­op­ment Com­pa­ny”, a gov­ern­ment run orga­ni­za­tion which, at the time when the Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music was cre­at­ed, had its offices on Juan Ponce de León Ave. in Hato Rey; about a mile north­east of its present day loca­tion.  Tele­mu­n­do is a local TV sta­tion (Chan­nel 2) that at the time had its stu­dios in the Puer­ta de Tier­ra area, close to Luis Muñoz Rivera Park.

In 2009 the Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music was moved to the his­toric Mira­mar dis­trict, fac­ing the Con­da­do Lagoon and the hotel dis­trict.  The present day struc­ture is a total­ly remod­el his­toric site built in 1882 to house the “Madres Her­manas del Sagra­do Corazón de María” (Sis­ter Moth­ers of the Sacred Heart of Mary) and it was also the last civ­il build­ing that the Span­ish gov­ern­ment built in Puer­to Rico (the last mil­i­tary build­ing was the Bal­la­já Bar­racks in Old San Juan).

The orig­i­nal mis­sion of the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music was to train Puer­to Rican musi­cians for the Puer­to Rico Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra and music teach­ers for the Island’s pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem. Today the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music is a full-fledged, ful­ly-accred­it­ed, top-notch insti­tu­tion that trains all sorts of musi­cians in diverse dis­ci­plines such as: singing, piano, gui­tar, orches­tra instru­ments, jazz, clas­si­cal and Caribbean music, com­po­si­tion and musi­cal education.

Right next to the teach­ing facil­i­ties there’s a mul­ti-amphithe­ater com­plex where stu­dents and well-renown musi­cians per­form reg­u­lar­ly. Some­times these events are pre­sent­ed at very low prices or com­plete­ly free to the gen­er­al public.

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

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