CSOradio
CSOradio
Donato Cabrera, music director of the California Symphony and the Las Vegas Philharmonic, owes it all to his grandmother.
A respected figure on the international classical-music scene, Cabrera credits his family, specifically his abuela, for making his career possible. “My Mexican grandmother wasn’t a trained musician but she was always the life of the family because she played piano,” he said. “She would play mostly by ear songs that she was taught as a child. I wanted to do what she did. That was the initial spark that led me to music.”
Cabrera, an alumnus of the University of Illinois, admires Chicago and its extensive music scene. His local appearances include concerts at the Ravinia Festival, Lyric Opera of Chicago and the CSO’s MusicNOW series. While studying for his master’s degree at the U. of I.'s Champaign campus, he spent "a lot of time coming up to Chicago to see Boulez and Barenboim at Orchestra Hall,” he said. “I’ve always had a connection to Chicago, I love the city so much.”
A few seasons ago, Cabrera appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a program with the Grammy and Latin Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Lila Downs. “I’ve been a fan of hers since I first heard her on the ‘Tortilla Soup’ (2001) soundtrack and in ‘Frida’ (2002),” in which she a small role and sang several songs. “Lila has such an amazing voice, and an all-encompassing and mesmerizing stage presence.”
Based in Contra Costa County, east of San Francisco, the California Symphony performs in the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. A California native, Cabrera grew up in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. He has spent much of his career in the Bay Area, where he was resident conductor of the San Francisco Symphony from 2009 to 2016, during Michael Tilson Thomas' tenure as music director.
In San Francisco, the annual Day of the Dead concerts are an important part of the symphony’s community-engagement efforts. Building a more diverse audience for classical music and the arts in general is a subject dear to Cabrera. He admires the work of Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan-born music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, for his community-engagement efforts. Cabrera also applauds genre-breaking efforts such as the hip-hop musical "Hamilton" for bringing new audiences to the arts.
He also has been firmly supportive of Sound Minds, the California Symphony’s nationally recognized music education program, founded in 2012 and inspired by Venezuela's El Sistema; it reflects Cabrera’s commitment to diversity and education through the arts.
“Obviously, it’s a complex issue, but in San Francisco, I have seen how the symphony has become more integrated into the community and its celebrations, such as El Dia de los Muertos," he said. "It takes time to establish that relationship, and to determine how can we best serve our community with the creation of concerts like this and similar programs. In San Francisco, the Day of the Dead concerts have been sold-out events for years. The entire hall has been turned into a celebration, with artwork in the lobbies and many community groups represented.”
That arts institutions are “finally addressing diversity is an accomplishment in itself," he said. "As a Latino, I am proud that my [ethnic] background has a deeper connection with classical music than much of the rest of the Americas,” he said, pointing out that the first opera to be staged in the New World was in Mexico in 1711. “Latino countries have a rich music tradition that many U.S. orchestras don’t know much about.”
But getting new audiences into concert halls often comes down to a question of educational access. Gone are the days when public schools offered music appreciation courses as part of a required curriculum. “I’m a total product of the public school system, and I’m so thankful for that opportunity,” Cabrera said. “It is a challenge. There is only so much an arts organization can do. How we engage with new audiences who have less and less of a background of appreciating music and the arts? We can make a difference by going to schools to perform as much as possible.
"But making the concert hall as welcoming and engaging is something we can change right away. For instance, do the doors need to be closed with the downbeat? We need to look at the idea of changing the entire paradigm of the concert experience.”
And what if someone could create the “Hamilton” of classical music? Cabrera laughed. “It’s out there," he said. "We just have to find it.”
A version of this article was originally published on Sounds and Stories, the predecessor site of Experience CSO.
