José Luis Turina

Interview published in the magazine Music & Education, June 2010


This Madrid native, known for his well-deserved reputation as a perfectionist and for serving as the artistic director of Spain's National Youth Orchestra (JONDE) for the past nine years, has already established a long and experienced career in the musical field, despite his late calling (he began his musical journey at almost eighteen). Nonetheless, he has had ample time to earn the respect of critics and the public alike, without relying on or diminishing the illustrious legacy of his grandfather's name. Trained at conservatories in Madrid and Barcelona, where he primarily studied piano, violin, harpsichord, and composition, he later moved to Rome with a scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to further his studies at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts. There, he attended Franco Donatoni's Composition Master Classes at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He has received awards such as the International Queen Sofía Prize from the Ferrer Salat Foundation (1986) and the National Music Award (1996), among others. However, in his opinion, if anything rewards the effort involved in composition, it is the result and the personal satisfaction of having fully devoted himself to a work he conceives not as something isolated or independent but as part of a collective creative effort. José Luis Turina's work emphasizes description, but the landscape he draws with musical notes is emotional. He draws inspiration from his surroundings, with a genuine passion for his family, who (especially his children) have also embraced a love of music. But in the life and work of this perpetual seeker -or unsatisfied searcher (this is, he says, "the trap art lays for the artist" to keep creating: a perpetual sense of dissatisfaction)- painting is also present, enriching him with its palette of colors -colors that evoke emotions, moods, and thoughts-. This intellectual, who finds inspiration in human bustle (parks, cafés…), avoids silence, almost as if it frightens him. He confesses to being a "classroom animal" because of his love for teaching, a way of life that has allowed him to continue composing with complete freedom and has given him invaluable knowledge from contact with new generations of musicians, whom he views with both satisfaction and trust, without lowering the standard of excellence that he himself always sets at the highest level of potential. Let us discover why, despite everything, these young people adore him.

1. What does contact with young people bring to José Luis Turina, whether through teaching, his work at the JONDE, or even, one might say, in his family environment with two musician children?
Primarily, enthusiasm, which they have in abundance. Fortunately, the young people I work with regularly are overflowing with talent, and their technical and musical skills allow them to tackle nearly the entire repertoire, making the work with them exceptional. But if there's one thing worth highlighting, it's that enthusiasm, that drive to make music and to pour all their passion into it, which, at their age, is substantial. I believe youth orchestras, and the JONDE in particular, possess the wonderful quality of constantly reminding us how every performer, of any age, should approach music.

2. And what do you think you bring to them? At least, what is the essential thing you aim to impart?
Well, enthusiasm as well, since I don't lack it either. The difference is that their enthusiasm is eager, full of a desire to learn, while mine is more seasoned, enriched by many years of experience. If you gather a group of young people with a great hunger to make music and place them in the hands of teachers and conductors who can transmit energy and dedication to music as it deserves, the combination is explosive. My job is precisely that: to select the most talented and willing musicians and provide them with training, necessarily intermittent but well-structured and in optimal conditions. That's why the results are often fantastic, comparable to, if not sometimes better than, those in the professional realm.

3. You are very demanding of yourself in your work. Are you equally demanding with the new generations of musicians?
Yes, because they themselves demand rigorous, high-level training and an orchestral management that reflects this. The latest generations of musicians joining the JONDE operate at levels of musical talent and technical quality previously unknown in this country. To ensure this continues, it is essential to maintain a high standard. But this must be an individual requirement (on the part of each performer and their teacher) as well as an institutional one. Fortunately, several advanced training centers in Spain are now aware of this and are producing musicians of excellent quality and quantity.

4. But you are aware of the respect and affection that the members of your youth orchestra have for you. How did you win them over?
Rigor is one of the key factors that permeates the entire process, from selection to the smallest organizational details. Then, enthusiasm, humility, and all that. The members of the JONDE have seen me act as artistic director but also putting up music stands, making photocopies, or collecting folders when the archivist was unavailable. I think that example is fundamental because many of them arrive with a certain arrogance, feeling talented but lacking the maturity to handle it. It's essential that during their time in the orchestra, they see and learn that there are many ways to engage in the profession, not just by always performing at the highest level on stage. Another important factor is fairness -not "playing favorites" with anyone-. This is something that must be practiced constantly, from the selection process (not favoring those seeking renewal or those who are already known and liked, over those entering the orchestra for the first time) to determining who should assume each role based on how they have prepared, or deciding who participates in special events, without strictly following the list of instrumentalists because former members may also be invited. All of this is very delicate, but they appreciate it when they see absolute impartiality. I strive to be fair because I know they have a strong sense of justice, and it is crucial not to disappoint them in this regard at such a critical moment in their artistic and personal development.

5. Do you believe that music can be such a decisive experience in shaping one's personality as people often say? Because, if so, perhaps there's reason to consider speaking out against certain teachers unable to instill a love of music in their students...
Indeed, sometimes there are very negative attitudes among teachers. It's always regrettable when a teacher forbids a student from attending a JONDE session, claiming it's a waste of time or that it will negatively affect their coursework. And even worse when a teacher is more concerned with imparting a sense of union activism than a true musical and human education. I believe that the learning of professional ethics should begin in the classroom, and I am very aware of this. For this reason, at JONDE we pay special attention to these aspects, both musically (silence during rehearsals, respect for the conductor, fellow musicians, printed material, and workspaces) and socially (behavior in hotels and concert halls). I recognize that this latter aspect is challenging, as great talent does not necessarily imply good manners, but our responsibility also includes guiding them in this regard.

6. Musical vocations usually develop early (at least, that's the general assumption, without much consideration for the influence of family as a "contaminating" or even "imposing" factor). But this wasn't the case for you; against all odds, you came to music at a relatively mature age, choosing freely and without feeling any external pressure. I'm curious to know what awakened your interest in music at eighteen to the point of deciding to pursue it professionally.
I think I couldn't explain it myself. I'm grateful to my parents for not forcing me to study music as a child, as I probably would have given it up in my teens. And it was precisely at the end of that period that I felt a powerful musical calling, which drove me to move quickly through the early stages of training: evidence of this is that I enrolled in first-year solfège at the same time as first-year Philosophy and Humanities (which I left after three months), but I managed to finish my Composition studies at a relatively "normal" age, even younger than some of my classmates. From the age of fifteen, I sang in the choir of the high school where I was studying, and little by little, I began attending concerts regularly. Then everything happened quickly, and by seventeen, I knew exactly what I did and didn't want to be. I admit that there was a major setback in all of this: my initial intention was to become a violinist, but I had to give up the instrument after six years of study because starting late made it impossible for me to master it, and it caused terrible muscle strain. That's why I turned to composition, something that hadn't been part of my plans at all.

7. During your journey, you had the privilege of encountering Franco Donatoni's talent. What memories or lessons do you carry from him as a musician and as a person?
In the late '70s, Donatoni was a leading figure in a composer's training. After receiving solid instruction in Madrid from José Olmedo, Francisco Calés, and Antón García Abril, attending his Composition Master Classes during my time in Rome as a scholar at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts was a great experience. He was a man of vast culture and intellectual capacity, and his classes were very engaging, yet his teachings left little lasting impression on me. Life has many twists, most of them completely unexpected, and in contrast, in Italy, I discovered another figure who completely changed the formative path that had brought me there. I refer to Salvatore Sciarrino, at that time entirely unknown in Spain, whose music dazzled me with its innovative timbral ideas serving a deeply coherent musical discourse. The first piece of mine showing his influence was composed a few months after arriving in Rome (the string quartet Lama Sabacthani?). My music is, of course, very different from Sciarrino's, but I owe him for helping me shape my aesthetic goals during that period.

8. Shortly after receiving a scholarship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to further your studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, awards began coming your way with works like Punto de encuentro and Ocnos. We can't overlook that you received the 1996 National Music Award and are a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary in Seville, as well as the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Granada. How important are recognitions like these to you? Do they boost the artist's ego, or just the résumé?
Honestly, I give them very little importance; the proof is that in my entire career, I have only entered three or four competitions. Of course, I do recognize that they can often be an excellent opportunity for an emerging composer to make themselves known. The National Award is different because it is given in recognition of a specific work or event that occurred during the year (at that time, I had just premiered the musical stage show La Raya en el Agua at Madrid's Circulo de Bellas Artes), and the appointments as a corresponding academician are merely honorary. Sincerely, I don't think those distinctions have influenced me at all.

9. You have taught at various institutions, such as the Professional Conservatory of Music in Cuenca, the Royal Conservatory of Music, the "Arturo Soria" Professional Conservatory, and the "Reina Sofía" School of Music in Madrid. I won't put you on the spot by asking which one you think is best, but where have you felt most comfortable, with the greatest freedom to develop your work as a teacher?
The first three are official conservatories, unlike the Reina Sofía School, especially during its first two years, which is when I was involved as a teacher. The goals they pursue are very different, because the latter is focused on training elite-level instrumentalists, of the highest caliber, whereas the conservatories -and even less so at that time- did not have that priority. Personally, I enjoyed teaching more in the conservatories, as the students there were more receptive and interested in a broader education, in which harmony (now Composition Fundamentals), the subject I teach, plays a crucial role. In the higher-level schools, however, the emphasis on the instrument is so consuming that there's hardly time for anything else.

10. Through your extensive professional experience, you've also had the opportunity to observe how music education is approached outside of Spain (for example, in the lectures you've given at various American universities, such as the prestigious Manhattan School of Music in New York). Comparisons are often harsh... so do we come out on the losing end?
When I visited those institutions in the late '80s and early-to-mid '90s, the difference was vast, but now that issue has been largely corrected, at least in those higher-level centers that have made the effort. And to be clear, I am referring to official institutions like Musikene, Esmuc, and the Zaragoza conservatory, which have embraced a flexible higher education model where they can "hire" faculty who are genuinely valuable for advancing a high-level, coherent, and well-thought-out educational project. So, there's now a two-speed model in Spain's higher music education, as they say, depending on whether conservatories follow the old (or, more accurately, outdated) model or the new one. I hope that the adaptation of institutions to the European Higher Education Area criteria will finally resolve this situation once and for all.

11. From 1993 to 1996, you were a technical advisor in the Council for Music and Performing Arts of the General Subdirectorate of Artistic Education at the Ministry of Education and Science, actively participating in developing the regulatory framework for the reform of artistic education within the LOGSE framework. How do you remember that period, which later recurred -at least in terms of the position- from 1998 to February 2001, when you joined the artistic direction of JONDE?
With mixed feelings. On one hand, it was an intense period (we had to tackle a tremendous amount of regulatory work in a short time, which was very much needed) and also very satisfying. I have been fortunate to take on what seem like disparate jobs, but they're actually very interconnected. By this, I mean that JONDE has been an excellent observatory to gauge the state of music education in Spain, particularly at the advanced level, which has developed based on the regulations I helped draft. Clearly, the latest generations of students are already part of the current curriculum (students from the 1966 curriculum were still entering until 2004), and the progress has been immense. The outlook has improved so much that members of the foreign juries who visit us each year for auditions for the two main European youth orchestras, the European Union Youth Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, are continually amazed by the developments in our country over the last ten years, both in terms of quality and quantity.
On the other hand, collaborating in that reform placed us -Elisa Roche, the Technical Advisor, and all the members of her team- in the eye of a storm that, when it could, unleashed its full destructive force. I'm referring to everything that happened after the 1996 change in government, which was spurred on by a wide sector of the more reactionary faculty, leading to the dismissal and resignation of the entire team, along with the abandonment of many projects that never came to fruition (such as the development of integrated studies, the law for higher education centers in the arts, pedagogical subjects, and many others no less important).

12. Since October of that year, you've also been a member of the INAEM Music Council. Are you not afraid of having so many commitments? Because, as we know, there's always someone ready to call you to account later on…
In addition to being a member of the Music Council, since 2008, I've also been a member of the Artistic Council of the National Music Auditorium, in my capacity as JONDE's artistic director. The truth is, the Music Council is a consultative body to the General Director of INAEM that meets very infrequently and lacks decision-making power, so, aside from obligatory participation in some juries and committees, it requires very little work. And since both bodies are advisory, rather than decision-making, it's quite comfortable to be involved in them: I simply give my opinion, based on my judgment, about the issues that come up.

13. You've also chosen to become involved in José Antonio Abreu's work. Tell me how the opportunity to work with him arose.
Connecting with Abreu and everything he represents, as the central figure of the youth and children's orchestra movement across Latin America, is undoubtedly one of the most significant contributions I've been able to make during all these years at the helm of JONDE. Europe's door was already wide open, and the presence of young Spaniards in the main youth orchestras across our continent was well established and highly significant (to elaborate on what I mentioned earlier, Spain has been among the top three European countries in terms of candidates for these auditions over the past ten years, and those selected represent between 12% and 15%). The collaboration with the Venezuelan National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras over the past three years began with an invitation to Maestro Abreu to inaugurate a conference on "Youth Orchestras and Social Work" organized by the Spanish Youth Orchestra Association (which I have chaired since its formalization in 2004) in partnership with the Paideia Foundation. This event took place in La Coruña in 2007, and the collaboration continued with Spanish participation, together with the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, in the first two editions of the Hispanic-Venezuelan Arts Festival in 2008 and 2009. All this reached its peak with the formation of the Ibero-American Youth Orchestra, comprising 45 JONDE members, 45 Venezuelans, and 50 young musicians from all Ibero-American countries. Co-directed artistically by Maestro Abreu and me, and musically by Gustavo Dudamel, this orchestra debuted in Estoril in December 2009, at the 19th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, likely marking a milestone in the realm of Ibero-American cultural and musical exchange.

14. On several occasions, you've said that composition is a difficult, arduous process for you, quoting Lutosławski -your predecessor for the Reina Sofía Prize-, who compared it to giving birth. I'd like to know what process you follow when composing: are you disciplined or a bit chaotic in your creative process? Does it differ when you're working on a commissioned piece?
I was quite comforted to read in a book of interviews with Lutosławski that he didn't feel any particular pleasure when composing, but that there was an inner force compelling him to do it. Something similar happens to me most of the time. As a matter of fact, I only begin to enjoy it once the piece is finished and the performers start bringing it to life. Of course, the only way to counter that somewhat unpleasant sensation while composing is to impose a very rigorous discipline on myself; so, chaotic? Absolutely not. And there's no difference between a commissioned piece and one that isn't. To begin with, if a commission doesn't appeal to me or imposes too many constraints that I don't like, I simply turn it down. It's happened many times.

15. I've heard that you often compose in public places, even with quite a bit of noise. In the initial stages of a piece, I wonder if musicians feel a certain fear of silence -if there's a sense of vertigo- similar to what a painter experiences with a blank canvas.
Of course, the "noise" I like to be surrounded by isn't musical; that kind I avoid, and in such cases, it would be simply impossible for me to compose. I'm referring to neutral noise that doesn't disturb my concentration, like the sounds of children playing, conversations, or typical traffic -though all at a certain distance, naturally-. There's an area in El Retiro Park, near the streets Ibiza and Sáinz de Baranda, where I could even point out the exact benches where I composed certain fragments of specific works while my children played nearby where I could keep an eye on them. Naturally, I value silence, which is often essential, but being surrounded by a bit of activity and learning to isolate oneself within it can also be highly enriching. As for the idea of feeling vertigo before the blank page, I think that's more of an "urban legend" than a real experience.

16. Painting's influence is easy to trace in the life and work of José Luis Turina. From your great-grandfather, father, and painter brother, to pieces like Exequias en homenaje a Fernando Zóbel or the Concerto for Viola dedicated to Óscar Domínguez, it seems you're reclaiming a kind of interconnection, an artistic "marriage" for mutual enrichment. Is that the case?
I could mention several other works, like Pentimento, Alaró (based on Manuel H. Mompó's work), or Four Studies in the Form of a Piece (based on Magritte and surrealist painting). And those are just the pieces indirectly related to painting, because I believe in the marriage of music with other arts (such as cinema, as in Tour de Manivelle based on silent films by Segundo de Chomón, or literature, with lieder, opera, etc.) as well as with many other facets of human knowledge. In this field, I must also highlight my interest in linguistics, which came after a long period of silent reflection (meaning, without composing anything for voice after my first opera, Ligazón) on the complex relationships between music and the natural intonation of spoken language. From that reflection, I drew conclusions that I later applied to both vocal and instrumental music (such as in Six Metaplasms for two violins).

17. In your work, the descriptive aspect of emotions seems to prevail. Could we then say that, for you, emotion and feelings are the foundation, the raw material of music and, thus, of communication?
Rather than emotions and feelings -which are tricky concepts since they lend themselves to a wide variety of interpretations that often escape any control- I prefer to talk about expression, which seems more appropriate when speaking of an art form like music. Fubini said -and I fully agree- that music has no meaning but rather an undeniable sense, and therein lies its expressiveness. But the fact that its discourse can, by analogy, reproduce the development, tension, and duration of emotional processes, and thus evoke them, should not lead us to believe they are the same thing.

18. Your paternal grandfather Joaquín Turina's generation and your own are musically and stylistically quite distant, but do you find any parallel or connection?
First and foremost, let me say that I am very proud to carry the Turina name, and I believe my grandfather's contribution to Spanish music of his time is highly significant, especially in terms of his chamber music and his development of a very skillful synthesis between the stylization of the popular and the European aesthetic currents of the moment. That said, I don't think there's a connection beyond the purely genetic. For obvious reasons, I've had to deal with my grandfather's music many times, sometimes directly (the most challenging was reconstructing the score for his opera Jardín de Oriente, lost somewhere, from the orchestral materials, in an era when computer editing didn't even exist) and other times indirectly, as a simple heir to his intellectual property rights, which I share with my father, who, at 90, is in perfect health, along with four siblings and six cousins.

19. In your opinion, what was the turning point that marked the beginning of a brilliant career that no doubt still holds many satisfactions for you?
As often happens in the field of composition, entering a major national competition at a particular moment (the "Golden Harp" Trophy of the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks, in 1979), where I was a finalist, was the turning point that marked the start of my career as a composer. I didn't win it (although a few years later, I took first prize at the 4th International "Reina Sofía" Competition, organized by the Ferrer Salat Foundation), but having my work performed at the Teatro Real in Madrid and later recorded on LP drew a great deal of professional attention to me. I haven't entered many competitions, as I mentioned earlier, but I acknowledge that these two occasions were of great importance to me.

20. What projects does José Luis Turina have lined up for this year? And are there any pending goals on your agenda?
The JONDE absorbs nearly all my time, so I have to carefully manage the little free time I have to compose and be very cautious when accepting certain commissions that would overwhelm me due to their scale. Besides the usual work at the Auditorio, I spend about 120 days a year away from home -between orchestra wotking periods and tours, attending the biannual meetings of the national and international Associations and Federations we're part of, and similar activities. All this work requires that I take advantage of the free time I have, which isn't ideal for creativity since any chance for continuity vanishes, and concentration becomes very difficult. But I've learned to organize myself: apart from composing whatever I can handle, I spend much of that time putting my past work in order: revising and computer-editing old manuscripts, mainly. The thing that would hurt me most would be for my music not to be performed in the future because it's not in a suitable condition for it, as happens to so much music -even very recent music.


March, 2010