PROJECTS
“Music and art in general transform lives, and I think one must feel that “pull” of music as service to others, because I believe that is the way to move forward in our dreams.”
Alejandra Urrutia
PORTILLO INTERNATIONAL MUSIC ACADEMY AND FESTIVAL (PORTILLOFEST)
The Portillo Music Festival is an extraordinary musical adventure immersed in one of the major mountain ranges in the world—the impressive landscapes of the Andes mountains in Chile. We award scholarships to 52 talented young artists from the global classical music scene to study with Peter Winograd, Laurie Carney, Daniel Avshalomov, and Wolfram Koessel of the American String Quartet; Beatrice Ovalle, flute of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Santiago, Chile; Federico Curti, Principal Oboe of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Sodre and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Montevideo, Uruguay; David Griffiths, Associate Professor of Music (Clarinet) and Chamber Music Coordinator at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne; Pedro Salcedo, Principal Bassoon of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá; Gabriel Betancur, horn of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá and Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia; Eugenio Urrutia-Borlando, piano, and Alejandra Urrutia, conductor of the PortilloFest Orchestra, and Artistic and Musical Director of the Festival.
This experience is not only about mastering the technical aspects of music. It’s a search for self-discovery and artistic growth, and to accomplish this we have Caroline Ward, who guides the students through leadership training and coaching, together with Juan Pablo Jara, who uses hatha yoga to ensure that the body responds to the challenges of achieving an integral and holistic life.
Gran Concierto por la Hermandad
In mid-2018 I saw a news story in which some migrants were mistreated… For me that had a lot of impact, and I thought, what can I do to change that? And the answer was… A CONCERT, OF COURSE!
So, together with my colleagues and friends Angélica Fanjul and Caroline Ward from Fanjul&Ward, we got involved in creating a concert with a citizen choir of more than 200 voices led by the choral director Paula Elgueta, together with an orchestra of almost 100 talented young musicians and members of professional orchestras. In the first “Concierto por la Hermandad” (2019), we had more than 6000 people in the audience, and the work chosen was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, “Choral”; in 2020 the chosen work was Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony, “Resurrection”, and the Sociedad Mahler México gave us the Mahler Award, which has been bestowed to Sir Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink and Gustavo Dudamel, among others. All of this was very significant, since we had the beautiful opportunity to meet Mahler’s granddaughter, Marina. Then the global pandemic hit us and, in 2022, we decided to perform Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem to honor humanity, which had lived through such dark days. In 2023 we played Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, because we felt it was time to meet again to celebrate and create community.
For 2025, the chosen work is Felix Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang, which was composed to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg’s printing press. This year, the choir will be prepared by the Argentinian director Virginia Bono, together with the Chilean conductors Sofia Torres and Christian Castro, and again I will have the honor of being the general director of the concert.
HUB Women Conductor
The mission of this HUB for women conductors is to provide mentorship and visibility to female conductors, as well as to explore and expand the possibilities available to them.
It’s a space where conductors can work together, boost their learning, collaborate with each other, and create a community.
This orchestral conducting course gives me the opportunity to work for 5 days with the HUB’s active and passive participants. In addition, the Chamber Orchestra of the Teatro Municipal de Santiago works with the conductors, preparing a fantastic closing concert open to the public.
One of the innovations we made in 2024 was to include a group of associated orchestras, who will invite the HUB conductors to be part of their seasons. These are the orchestras who have joined this initiative: Orquesta Sinfónica Universidad de Concepción, Orquesta Filarmónica de Temuco, Orquesta Filarmónica de los Ríos, Orquesta Sinfónica de Ñuble, and, of course, the Chamber Orchestra of the Teatro Municipal de Santiago.