A little over a year after his death, piano professor Alfonso Montecino will be honored with an event at which he excelled during his lifetime: a concert performance.
Jacobs School of Music faculty and invited artists will perform 8 p.m. tonight in Auer Hall to honor the renowned Chilean concert pianist and composer.
“He is actually somebody who had a fantastic concert performance career in Europe, Asia and the United States at a time where it wasn’t very easy for Latin American performers to be known internationally in that way,” Director of the Latin American Music Center Javier León said.
Although León did not have the opportunity to meet Montecino before his death, León said he worked closely with members of the Montecino family in order to organize the tribute concert.
Montecino’s daughter Pilar Gunderson said she helped León in the planning stages of the event.
“Javier and the staff have been so wonderful and have worked so hard and diligently to gather everything together to make this so special for us,” she said.
León said the songs played at the concert will feature both Montecino’s work as well as songs by other composers including Maurice Ravel and Jules Massenet. The tribute’s performers include Kenneth Gunderson, son of Gunderson and grandson of Montecino.
“The first couple pieces are going to be pieces by other composers,” León said. “One by Maurice Ravel, which his grandson is going to play on the guitar, and that’s a special piece because Professor Montecino, that was one of his favorite pieces, and he used to play it a lot when he was in concert.”
The tribute will also include performances by some of Montecino’s former students, as well as a recording of Montecino himself.
“In fact, that recording is from the 1960s from the first concert that he played here,” León said. “We have an archival recording of that, which is basically the recording that gave him the job here. We’re going to play a little piece of it.”
León said for the tribute, the LAMC will test out a live broadcast of the concert via Facebook so that people from different parts of Chile can watch. An earlier tribute to Montecino took place in Chile in February at the Frutiller Musical Weeks festival.
“The family felt that he had been such a staple of IU, and there’s a number of professional performers and people who are now professors at other universities and who were students of his,” León said. “We kind of wanted to have an event here in the States to give people an opportunity to say goodbye, too.”
Gunderson said there is nothing more special to her than her father being honored by the LAMC, because her family has such fond memories of IU.
“My love for music was inspired by my father and my mother,” she said. “I have been very blessed and very lucky to have this privilege in my life. On behalf of my entire family, we are so incredibly grateful and honored for this farewell concert for our dad.”
