{"id":4321,"date":"2016-05-31T13:00:47","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=4321"},"modified":"2021-04-29T11:48:43","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T18:48:43","slug":"virginia-luque-segovias-last-private-pupil-has-become-a-nonstop-ambassador-for-classical-guitar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/virginia-luque-segovias-last-private-pupil-has-become-a-nonstop-ambassador-for-classical-guitar\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Luque: Segovia\u2019s Last Private Pupil has Become a Nonstop Ambassador for Classical Guitar"},"content":{"rendered":"
From the Summer 2016 issue of Classical Guitar<\/em> magazine<\/a> | BY BLAIR JACKSON<\/h6>\n

These are exciting times for internationally acclaimed classical and flamenco guitarist, composer, conductor, and teacher Virginia Luque. In the past year alone the Spanish native has released several first-rate CDs on her blossoming Iberia Productions label: the solo guitar Homage to Agust\u00edn Barrios<\/a><\/strong>; Spanish Masterworks for the Guitar<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (which includes the Concierto de Aranjuez<\/em>, performed with the London Symphony Orchestra); A Christmas Feeling<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, consisting of instrumental duets with versatile jazz\/blues guitarist Jack Pearson; and All Mozart<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, a disc of her conducting the Moravian Philharmonic Olomouc on the well-known Symphony No. 40 in G minor<\/em> and Piano Concerto #21 in C major<\/em> (featuring the Latin Grammy\u2013winning Sonia Rubinsky). The coming year promises\u00a0more, too, including All About Bach, Vol. 1; Passions<\/em>\u2014duets with Bulgarian violinist Bojidara Kouzmanova on works by Enrique Granados, Manuel de Falla, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and more; and a duo CD called A Due<\/em> with Grammy-winning soprano Ana Maria Martinez.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of projects in my mind all these years,\u201d Luque says by phone from her Manhattan home (she also still spends much time in Spain). \u201cMy desire was to collaborate with musicians I always wanted to work with\u2014great players and great friends. I said, \u2018Let\u2019s make music!\u2019 and I put my production company together so I could get my ideas out.\u201d<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s brimming with ideas. In April she\u2019s scheduled to record a disc of Spanish and Latin American music, called Apassionata<\/em>, with mezzo soprano Nancy Fabiola Herrera, who studied at New York\u2019s Juilliard School of Music at the same time as Luque and Ana Maria Martinez. Then she\u2019ll go into the studio with a soprano from Texas, Elisa Brown, to record a disc of Latin American folksongs, A mi alma latina<\/em>; and she\u2019s also hoping to squeeze in two guitar projects\u2014one devoted to her arrangements of pieces by Isaac Alb\u00e9niz, and the other her take on Bach\u2019s Goldberg Variations<\/em>, which she describes as \u201cthe most intellectual work I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Down the line she is planning discs devoted to contemporary composing giants such as Leo Brouwer, Carlo Domeniconi, and Jorge Morel, as well as Mario Castelnuevo-Tedeseco, Manuel Ponce, Granados, Francisco T\u00e1rrega, and Federico Moreno Torroba (\u201cwho not that many people play these days,\u201d she notes). Additionally, she\u2019s preparing for a disc of tangos, another of her own flamenco compositions, and also one of her classical compositions.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Luque founded both Music for Life NYC\u2014a nonprofit humanitarian organization\u2014and, as its musical arm, the New York Women\u2019s Philharmonic, which is made up of top players from various US orchestras, chamber groups, and soloists. Luque is the music director and conductor for the group, which raises money for\u00a0various charities.<\/p>\n

In short, Luque is a very busy woman. \u201cI\u2019ve been balancing my solo and orchestra performances with my recording schedule,\u201d she says. \u201cI also have private students at the Guitar Salon when I\u2019m in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luque has come a long way since she grew up in the beautiful coastal town of Algeciras, in the Cadiz region on the southern tip of Spain, near Gibraltar. It\u2019s an area where guitar has a long history, but even so, few would have predicted that Virginia would take up the guitar so young. \u201cI was obsessed with it,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I was four I was given a beginner\u2019s guitar, and I started playing it and couldn\u2019t stop. My father said, \u2018Well, if she goes to bed and sleeps with it, there\u2019s something going on.\u2019\u201d By the age of six she was studying flamenco with a teacher, and she performed in public for the first time at age seven.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlgeciras was all-flamenco,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was no conservatory, so flamenco\u00a0was what you learned. Eventually my flamenco teacher advised me, \u2018I think you should learn classical,\u2019 because flamenco was related somehow to dark, smoky\u00a0places and not recommended by society at that time, especially for little girls. It has changed a lot, obviously. So after a while I went to the conservatory in [nearby] M\u00e1laga.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luque also got the opportunity to study with the legendary Andr\u00e9s Segovia, who happened to share a friend with Virginia\u2019s father. The friend introduced Virginia to Segovia and she became the Maestro\u2019s last private pupil. Luque says that even when Segovia was quite elderly, he always managed to find time to offer advice and incisive critiques to promising young players.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a great experience with him,\u201d she recalls. \u201cHe was sort of like a grandfather. He did, as people say, have a strong temper and could be demanding, but we shared an Andalusian sense of humor that made our work easier. But also, I was demanding with myself; maybe too much.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time I got to Segovia, I had been through different stages of doubt and questioning\u2014maybe I should change this and change that. During several summers, or when he was not on tour, I used to stay in Madrid and study with him for five hours a day; a very stressful time, as you can imagine. I tried to imitate his sound by imitating his position, but he said, \u2018What are you doing?\u2019 I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know, Maestro. I don\u2019t have a clue! I just want your sound.\u2019\u201d She laughs at the recollection. \u201cHe said, \u2018No, you have to develop your sound with your hands, and your hands are perfect.\u2019 Since my right-hand position was fine, I developed my sound from that point on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Luque had already earned a master\u2019s degree at the Conservatorio Superior de M\u00fasica de M\u00e1laga, Segovia was among those who urged her to go to New York to \u201cinternationalize my career,\u201d which eventually led to her to enrolling in the master\u2019s program at Juilliard. How much did her studies at Julliard differ from those at the Conservatorio in Spain? \u201cIt was totally different,\u201d she says. \u201cIn Spain, it was a very methodical learning experience. You build your basics from the beginning and you learn certain studies and methods\u2014music theory, harmony, composition, chamber music. There are a lot subjects you have to accomplish to get a degree, and it was eight years, compared with two years at Juilliard. By the last days of the eight years you want to run away\u2014\u2018I don\u2019t want to hear another note!\u2019\u201d she laughs. \u201cSo on one hand it seems very rigid\u2014going through the books\u2014but you actually learn if you have good teachers. When you start out over this course, you\u2019re nobody, and you build who you are and you build your career.<\/p>\n

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