Patrick's People - Meeting expectations

Theme for the Southeast Kansas Symphony 2012-2013 season is “Great Expectations: The Music Awaits.”

It’s appropriate, because great expectations are exactly what new conductor Raul Antonio Munguia has for the symphony.
He has only been at Pittsburg State University since July, but has already got a bright vision for the symphony and performing arts in this region.

Munguia will make his debut with the symphony in its season opener at 3 p.m. Sunday in Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium.
Concert tickets will be $7 for adults, $5 for seniors and free for PSU students with ID. They will be available in the PSU Ticket Office or at the door.

Munguia is a professor of violin and viola, as well as artistic director and conductor of both the SEK Symphony and the PSU Chamber Orchestra.

“I have a vision for this program to grow to a level of being recognized nationally,” he said. “I have a vision to make Pittsburg and southeast Kansas the center for the arts in this area. I think we have the talent and vision to put Pittsburg first in the performing arts.”

Munguia is aware that this isn’t going to happen overnight.
“It’s a long-term vision, but it’s doable, and the Southeast Kansas Symphony fits perfectly in this vision,” he said.

So does the proposed PSU performing arts center, which he sees as a lure to bring nationally known performers to the area, including those who would be guest artists with the symphony.

“I want to bring artists to the area that people will really want to put the time, buy the ticket and make the trip to see the SEK Symphony,” Munguia said.

He’s also excited about the new performing arts center as a home for the symphony.

“That would be our house,” Munguia said. “Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium is a great facility, but to have the symphony’s home on campus would be amazing. It would be a dream position for me, because not many have the opportunity to set an orchestra on a brand new stage.”

The Sunday concert won’t be on a new stage, but the conductor said that it will still be exceptional. It is being called “Immortal Beethoven,” because two of that composer’s works will be featured.
Opening piece will  be the “Egmont Overture, Op. 47.” Beethoven, a great admirer of the German author Goethe, was commissioned to compose incidental music for a production of “Egmont,” a historical drama written by Goethe. It was first performed on June 15, 1810.
“The symphony will also perform Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No. 7,’ which is one of the most challenging pieces in the symphonic repertoire,” Munguia said.  “Not many orchestras put it on the program. It will be mainly students performing it, rather than faculty members, and I  am so pleased with them.”

The non-Beethoven piece will be “Kol Nidrei” by Max Bruch. Though the composer was a Christian, the piece is based on two Jewish themes, and takes its name from the prayer recited during evening services at the start of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.
Yom Kippur 2012 will begin at sunset Tuesday and conclude at sunset Wednesday.

Cello soloist will be Matthew Herren, currently a lecturer in cello at PSU. A graduate of  The Juilliard School, he has appeared as a chamber musician, recitalist and concerto soloist throughout the United States Europe and Asia. He divides his time between New York City and Lawrence, and performs regularly at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in new York and with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Music Society and the Lawrence Chamber Orchestra.

A native of Honduras, Munguia began playing violin at the age of 12.
“My family is fond of music, but I am the first person in our family with formal music training,” he said.

He said that he became interested in conducting when he was a teenager.

“The first time I stood in front of an orchestra, it was a youth orchestra,” Munguia said. “I thought, ‘Wow, I can really change things from the podium and influence so many players.’ As a player, you can only change yourself, and maybe influence the players around you.”
He came to the United States in 2001. He earned a bachelor of  music in violin performance from the University of Southern Mississippi and a master of music in both violin performance and orchestral conducting from Northwestern State University of Louisiana. Munguia is an A.B.D. doctoral candidate at Texas Tech University.

As a violinist, Munguia has held the concertmaster chair with the San Pedro Sula Chamber Orchestra,, Honduran Symphony Orchestra, Natchitoches-Northwestern Symphony Orchestra and the University of Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra. He has also been first section violin at the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Fe, N.M., Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra. He has performed with world renowned soloists such as Itzhak Perlman, Placido Domingo, Yo You Ma and James Galway.

He has been guest conductor of the Honduras Philharmonic Orchestra, San Pedro Sula Chamber Orchestra, Universidad Federal de Alagoas Symphony Orchestra, Natchitoches-Northwestern Symphony Orchestra and the University of Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra. Munguia has an invitation to be a guest conductor this fall for the Maracaibo Youth Symphony Orchestras in Venezuela.

He and his wife have two sons, aged 12 and 15.
“My wife, who is finishing her degree at Texas Tech University, plays flute, my 12-year-old plays violin and the 15-year-old plays cello,” Munguia said. “There is always music in our house.”