Proving Music Knows No Borders : L.A. Philharmonic and Youth Orchestra of Tepoztlan Build a Cultural Bridge

His eyes riveted on the young people tuning up in the historic courtyard below, Esa-Pekka Salonen was like a statue out of time--black Levi’s, Reeboks and golf shirt, his conductor’s baton wedged under arm. He leaned, transfixed, through the arch of Tepoztlan’s 16th-Century Convent of the Nativity and surveyed the scene before him.

“It’s amazing!” the 36-year-old Finnish conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic finally said after watching silently for almost 10 minutes, as the children and teen-agers of Mexican farmers, teachers, peasants and craftsmen--boys and girls who couldn’t play a note just three years ago--took their places in the Tepoztlan Youth Symphony Orchestra below. “It’s like a fairy tale. It’s like I’m inside a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel.”

But it was real.

Within an hour, the Philharmonic’s music director would stand, rigid, proud and beaming in the twilight in the courtyard as he led almost 300 Mexican youngsters in a rehearsal of Jean Sibelius’ “Finlandia,” a piece the conductor said embodies the desire of a nation--be it Finland or Mexico--for independence.

This was the beginning of the Philharmonic’s six-city tour and--more important--a permanent relationship that Salonen and his Mexican counterpart say they hope will change Los Angeles as much as his presence has the small Mexican town of Tepoztlan.

The Monday rehearsal and a final dress performance in Mexico City on Tuesday evening “proves that music is the universal language with which you can communicate between people, between cultures, between languages and between countries--and these kids understand this,” a flushed Salonen declared moments after he and the young musicians reached the final cadence.

For Salonen--who is making his first Latin American visit this week with the L.A. Philharmonic, conducting a three-day concert stop in Mexico City with two evening performances in the Mexican capital--the daylong session with the youngsters and five members of the Philharmonic at the Convent of the Nativity was the culmination of eight months of planning.

He and several Mexican and Los Angeles-based classical music patrons have labored to create special ties between the Philharmonic and the Tepoztlan Youth Orchestra; Salonen describes it simply as an “adoption” of the youth group in this town of 13,000, an hour’s drive south of Mexico City.

“It’s creating a link--us helping them, and them helping us--and showing a living example to Los Angeles and to Mexico of what can be done for so little money,” Salonen explained of the coaching done by him, trombonist Jeffrey Reynolds, bassoonist Patricia Kindel Heimerl, violinist Barry Socher, percussionist Raynor Carroll and bassist Oscar Meza Jr.

Ideally, he said, “we could use this young orchestra in various communities in Los Angeles to show this is, indeed, possible. It changes the lives of the kids and the environment.”

For the conductor, the motivation is personal, as well.

“I’m concerned about the future because I have to be,” Salonen said, noting that he lives in a time in which “Madonna is mainstream and classical music has gone underground and counterculture.”

“I don’t want to be the last generation of conductors,” he added, “and this is the best way to guarantee continuity of interest.”

Salonen has championed the program with the Mexican youngsters ever since he lunched at a Westwood coffeehouse eight months ago with Tepoztlan Youth Orchestra president Julio Solorzano Foppa and Solorzano’s American partner Arthur Gorson.

The two men own the Los Angeles-based Ventana Films production company. They used their friendships to reach Salonen to pitch to him the idea of the Philharmonic hooking up somehow with the youth orchestra, which Solorzano helped launch almost three years ago in his hometown.

To appreciate the magnitude of this proposal--and the young orchestra’s opening by playing “Finlandia” with Salonen conducting prior to the Philharmonic concert on Tuesday night at Mexico City’s most prestigious venue, the Palacio de Bellas Artes--is to understand that not one of the Tepozteco musicians, ages 5 to 18, had even seen sheet music 30 months ago. None of them owned instruments--all of which were donated by their community. The youngsters’ orchestral work quickly became as much a crash course in social-development skills as one of musical training.

Salonen and the backers of the youth orchestra also see critical cultural and political issues playing themselves out in the tie between the Philharmonic and the Mexican children.

They said it could help bridge cultural chasms between California and Mexico, at a time of furious reaction to the recent passage of Proposition 187, the ballot measure aimed at deterring illegal immigration.

As an indicator of the anger here about Prop. 187, Solorzano found himself on the defensive at a Mexico City news conference called to announce the new relationship between the Philharmonic and the youth orchestra.

He answered angry questions about Prop. 187, saying that he believed the ballot measure “is a profound violation of human rights . . . and an attack on our culture.” But it was just for that very reason, he said, that cultural links--especially like those between the Los Angeles and Mexican musicians--are now so vital.

Salonen agreed. In an interview in Tepoztlan on Monday, he said that he considers Prop. 187 to be “based on a lack of knowledge and a lack of rational thought.” There is a clear link, he said, between its short-term thinking and the ebb of American interest in classical music in a society conditioned to fast-edit music videos and cable television.

“If you only see a few feet in front of your face, you don’t see the value of the classical arts. You must take a long-term view,” he said. “And that applies to Prop. 187, as well. There might be things that seem like an easy fix right now, and in five years you find yourself in the middle of a nightmare. I think Prop. 187 is a lot like that. And so is popular interest in the classical arts.”

On Tuesday, at another news conference at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Ernest Fleischmann, the Philharmonic’s executive director, put punctuation on the message. After the questions had ended, he asked for the microphone to make a final comment.

“Prop. 187 or no, there are bigger issues,” he said, stressing that the ties between the Philharmonic and the Tepozteco youth “mean greatly more than what the political politicians are trying to do.”

“Let’s not despair; (Prop.) 187 is a temporary thing. We are here to make something permanent. And I think the impact 300 young people can have in a community like Tepoztlan, we can all learn from that. We can certainly learn in Los Angeles.”