JONDE, 35 años de una utopía necesaria / JONDE, 35 years of a necessary utopia

By Mario Muñoz Carrasco

Reportage published in the nº 349 of Scherzo magazine (Madrid, March 2019)


«Your Honors: The Spanish orchestras are encountering serious difficulties in completing their staffs due to the lack of professional qualifications of potential candidates. This situation [...] forces orchestras to resort to hiring foreign musicians more often than would be desirable. It is therefore necessary to create the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España [...] in order to contribute to the promotion of musical vocations in our country and to provide its competent young musicians with a comprehensive training, both musical and humanistic, which will enable them to develop professionally in the world of music».

With these two simple introductory paragraphs, the B.O.E. in October 1983 announced the creation of the JONDE, one of those long-postponed educational needs that had begun to be considered the heritage of the chimerical. These few words sum up lucidly and unambiguously the orchestral situation in Spain in the early eighties, where the multiplication of continents -the auditoriums- inevitably led to a shortage of content -the orchestras- with the consequent obligation on the part of the institutions to seek rapid solutions. The most common of these urgent measures can still be seen today if one looks closely at the last page of the programme notes handed out (less and less every day) in some concert halls: orchestral staffs internationalised to an extreme degree, an original sin that soon afterwards led to a dead end for a good part of the young Spanish musicians. José Luis Turina, artistic director of the JONDE for the last 18 years, reflects on the positive aspects of that exceptional situation: "We owe it to these foreign professionals not only that they have been able to make a first-rate symphonic life feasible (which most of our Autonomous Communities could not have imagined a few years earlier) but also that they have trained many generations of young people in the territorial sphere in which they worked, outside the official teaching". Because that was, in short, the epicentre of the problem of orchestras and conservatories in Spain: the low quality of our disorganised musical education system.

Creation, order and concert
The JONDE was born in the early 1980s in a foreign land institutionally speaking, as it was part of an initiative of the Ministry of Culture and not of the Ministry of Education, a more natural location given its functions, were it not for its immobility -"it was a good slap on the wrist", Turina comments. In reality, the Spanish lag with respect to the training of other young European orchestras was equivalent to that which we were accumulating in other artistic disciplines (consider that the Bundesjugendorchester, the German equivalent to be conducted this year by Kirill Petrenko, is now celebrating half a century of existence). Its definitive launch owes much to the impetus of the conductor Edmon Colomer, who served as artistic and musical director in its early years, and to José Manuel Garrido Guzmán, director general of Music and Theatre (later INAEM). "Colomer defended with conviction a project in which he firmly believed", Turina recalls, "and he was joined by the unconditional support of a politician like Garrido, who convinced the rest of the administrative forces to give it legal status and provide it with the budget it needed to become a reality".
The creation of the JONDE was not the philosopher's stone of educational strategies. Under the surface of a cultural fabric in ferment, some of the ills that had been considered endemic in this country were accumulating: the precariousness of teaching in conservatories weighed down by their overcrowding, the absence of a clear and practicable itinerary in the different grades and the inexistence of that intermediate step that provides a structure of non-regulated musical education. "The direct consequence of all that", reflects the Madrid composer, "was the impossibility of having a sufficient number of qualified professionals to nurture an increasingly intense musical life. For young musicians it was a point of reference towards which to channel their training in the medium and long term".
As an ideal companion to the JONDE project came the compulsory teaching of orchestral education for all symphonic specialities from the intermediate level onwards, with the rationalisation of the staff that this entailed and a more balanced offer of specialities. The first steps of change had been taken, and little by little the rest of the young orchestras linked to their respective autonomous communities were founded.

Advantages of an ephemeral architecture
After the first stage with Colomer at the helm, the orchestra entered a new phase in 1995 thanks to the arrival of Llorenç Caballero, an advocate of a more open structure with a resident composer and where the figure of the musical director included renowned guest maestros to generate a choral point of view that moved away from what the musicians had already experienced at the conservatory. "The JONDE was not and is not a professional orchestra, with a stable season, but a training project", says Turina. "In the first case, the figure of the chief conductor is indispensable to give coherence and personality to an orchestra; but in the case of a young orchestra, it is more important to provide the broadest possible experience to its members. If in the time spent in the JONDE the musicians have had the opportunity to work with six, seven or eight important conductors, they will have known very different -and all of them valid- ways of understanding the conductor/orchestra relationship, which in general tends to be quite complex". Thanks to this, several generations of musicians have had the opportunity to grow artistically, sharing the stage with Carlo Maria Giulini, Andras Ligeti, Paul Goodwin, Christopher Hogwood, Gianandrea Noseda, Juanjo Mena or Jesús López Cobos, among others.
The needs and above all the working realities have changed a lot between the times of Caballero and those of Turina, its artistic director from 2001 until a few weeks ago, when he announced his retirement. "A young orchestra can sound as good or better than a professional one, but in this one the musicians have developed reflexes and a speed to assemble a repertoire in a few days that the young ones logically do not have". In contrast to the frenetic pace of the seasonal orchestras (first reading, dress rehearsal and concert), the JONDE is committed to organising its training work in a more leisurely manner, in a kind of professional acceleration lane where the experience gained by the young musicians has an almost unconscious effect on them. After the annual entrance auditions, designed for musicians between 18 and 23 years of age who have completed the Professional Degree and Secondary Education, a series of periodic working periods are organised in which all the activity is concentrated to the maximum. In the words of its artistic director, "the JONDE working periods follow the structure of those of any youth orchestra: a first phase of three or four days where a team of teachers from different specialities, from both Spanish orchestras and the most important orchestras in Europe, prepare the repertoire separately, each with their own section, with an initial ensemble reading of the programmed works by the assistant conductor. In the second phase, the guest conductor will be in charge of assembling and polishing the work carried out by the teachers in the previous sectional rehearsals for another three or four days. Finally, a tour of three to five concerts will bring the working period to a close.
Obviously, in its work of deconstruction and projection towards the world of the professional orchestra, it was decided to provide the musicians with a worthy platform for expression with concerts on first-rate stages, on the understanding that these spaces would raise the stature of the members of the young orchestra. Today, the JONDE regularly participates in the most important Spanish and European festivals, combining training and dissemination.

The contemporary as an opportunity
Perhaps one of the most recognisable hallmarks of the orchestra is its link with the world of contemporary music, an aspect that entailed a certain risk in a general programming ecosystem where it is increasingly difficult to break away from the canon. "The JONDE must provide high quality training for its members", Turina defends, "And that means working in depth on the traditional symphonic repertoire, but also on the masterpieces of the 20th century and the most contemporary creation. Few things make a composer happier than to be programmed by an orchestra like this one, where the works are not just given a reading and a dress rehearsal, as usually happens, but are worked on in detail -by sections and as a whole- over many days, in the presence of the composer whenever possible. This experience is also crucial for the musicians, since their attitude towards contemporary creation, against which they are usually quite guarded when they arrive, changes radically when they work on it in this way".
As a complement to this line of dissemination, the Academy of Contemporary Music was born, an initiative that arose during the composer's first years at the helm of the JONDE and coincided with Jorge Fernández Guerra's tenure as head of the Centro para la Difusión de la Música Contemporánea (Centre for the Dissemination of Contemporary Music). With the collaboration of the CDMC and under the auspices of the Academy, some very interesting creative projects followed, premiered at the Alicante Contemporary Music Festival. After a few years of activity, the best of news happened: the Academy was naturally reabsorbed, understanding that the presence of contemporary music in the daily programme of the JONDE -both symphonic and chamber- was sufficiently frequent that its practice did not need specific attention.
There is a clear sense of pride in José Luis Turina when he speaks of the orchestra's involvement with the world of contemporary creation: "A recent statistical study we have done on the programming of the last ten years yields very eloquent data in this sense. In 2018, for example, of the 55 works programmed -symphonic and chamber, to which special attention is paid- only 13 were by composers prior to the 20th century. Of the remaining 42, 15 were by composers who died in the first half of the century and 4 in the second half. And the remaining 23 were by living or recently deceased composers. And no less important: of the 55 works performed, 22 were by Spanish composers". An unthinkable statistic for any other orchestra in the country…

The before and after of the JONDE musicians
Like any young orchestra, the present of the group is still managed with ups and downs and a small degree of uncertainty in the results, largely because there is no evolution or linearity in the development of its artistic personality, given its important percentage of annual renewal and average permanence (two or three years). But the idea of the JONDE is also to serve as a thermometer with respect to the studios from which its members come: "We exploit to the maximum the knowledge we have of the musicians who form part of the staff", explains Turina. "Every year we publish various statistics (age, sex, Autonomous Community of origin), including the results of the annual entrance exams, which give exact data on the participation and results obtained by the candidates according to the Conservatorio Superior where they are studying. These statistics are very eloquent when it comes to assessing the current state of health of higher education in our country, and should also serve as a reflection for the educational administrations where such education does not give the results that could be expected from the very high investment that is made in it".
On the other hand, the employment opportunities taken up by former members are difficult to quantify directly, given the volume of instrumentalists who have defended their music stands. "It is practically impossible to keep track of the career trajectory of musicians who have finished their time in the orchestra. Although communication with them is maintained -with those who have not yet turned 30, we continue to collaborate in the form of exchanges in projects with other national youth orchestras in Europe, as well as with the Latin American children's and youth orchestra systems, to which the young musicians mainly provide teaching support-, it is normal that once the orchestra has finished, they usually enter a professional life (which, given the precariousness of their work, is necessarily very mutable) that absorbs most of their time and for which they do not feel obliged to give us an account, just as we are not obliged to ask them for it. We always hear of ex-Jondes who have obtained brilliant results in auditions for the most important orchestras in the European Union, but these are usually very specific cases: most of them are never heard from again".

Future without fatigue or exile?
It is often difficult for us to explain the relevance of satisfying the basic cultural needs of a society, especially when investing in art is not exactly at the forefront of the tangible urgencies of our complicated consumer market. It would seem that culture is a privilege of the good times, not a perennial need of the individual.
The profitability or net benefit of a group like the JONDE -or of any cultural project in general- is quantified in economic terms with considerable difficulty, even though its contributions in other spheres are evident. Without going any further, what has undoubtedly been the most famous musical aphorism in history -that "life without music is simply a mistake, a fatigue, an exile" written by Nietzsche to Peter Gast- would have its hours numbered in our paradoxical and hurried digitalised universe. José Luis Turina does not speak of the future, on the verge of retirement. He has been a privileged witness and an outstanding observer of the struggle against the material fatigue of the musical education system and the complex cultural policies of everyday life: "It is impossible for me to imagine where the JONDE will be in 35 years' time. That is a long way off in time, when it is very difficult to make a forecast for the next few years. We cannot forget that the JONDE exists and is what it is because it was born and has developed within a public administration that has provided it with everything necessary for its existence", he reflects. "All the General directors I have met during this time -and there have been quite a few in these eighteen years- have supported it unreservedly, and despite the difficult economic situation of the last decade, the JONDE has been able to carry out its work, albeit reducing its activity in proportion to the budget available each year. Instead of making futures, it is better to be realistic. Let us hope that, however bad the political and economic circumstances may be, this attention to a project that has more than satisfied the expectations placed in it when it was created will be maintained".
An article published in 2004 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the ensemble reacted with pride at the new position of Spanish musicians among young European orchestras, and the role that the JONDE had played in this. Spain was ranked fourth in terms of the number of members per country. Fifteen years later, in the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO), there have been 32 Spanish tenured musicians and 50 musicians who have obtained reserve places, the country with the largest presence of the 28 member states of the European Union.
That utopian seed that was the JONDE of '83 seems to have put down roots and a trunk, it seems to be working despite the selective pruning to which it has been subjected in recent years. Let's hope that the vigour of its ever-renewed sap will allow it to continue to grow for many more years, without any major loss of foliage and with the red fruit of so much talent ripening without urgency.


Link to JONDE, 35 years. Interview with José Luis Turina
By Mario Muñoz Carrasco
Interview prior to the article JONDE, 35 years of a necessary utopia, published in the nº 349 of Scherzo magazine (Madrid, March 2019)