My dream is coming true!
By Turkkan Osman Macías

Postponed
Concert
Free Violin/Piano Recital
Turkkan Osman Macías and Liz Stone
Thu, May 7, 5pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6

After living in New York City for nearly a year, some things remain the same—like the excitement I always feel when I go out at night to the downtown area and see all the lights and people walking by—and others have drastically changed.

When I woke up the first morning I ever spent in New York, I said to myself in a kind of melancholic and nostalgic way, as I was walking down the stairs to the kitchen in Andrew Janns’ apartment, “So here’s where I’m going to be living for the next couple of days.” At that moment it would have never crossed by my mind that this city would later turn into my new home, because if the saying “Home is where your heart is” is true, then I can happily say that I’m far away from being homeless. No matter how far I go and for how long I stay away, San Miguel de Allende will always be in my heart.


A lineage of knowledge and new theories

Patinka Kopec is the renowned violin teacher at the Manhattan School of Music and associate to the famous Pinchas Zuckerman. I don’t remember ever talking about the great experience that studying with her has been and will be for the next 4 years (and maybe more.)

In my letter in April 2008 I wrote about having one lesson with her in February during my first audition trip to New York and elsewhere. I emailed her six months later—around the last week of August 2008—and while I was waiting to hear back from her, there was this thought in the back of my head that she might not remember me at all, that maybe she wouldn’t even reply to my email or something like that. So I have to admit that the following day was full of the excitement you feel when you see a good action movie, only in this case, the action took place on my email account every time I pushed the refresh button. I honestly don’t know how many times I pressed that button, but each time I did it, I remember putting my wishes and hopes on it, thinking that by doing so it would affect the course of the universe in a positive way for me.

“Of course I remember you” were some of the first words I read on the screen, and subsequently she told me how amazed she was to know that I had made it this far, referring not only to the four-hour flight from Mexico City to New York, but to everything that had been done in order to allow me to be there during the fall. She gave me her phone number and told me to call her that same evening after nine. Now, for some reason, out of 100 calls that I make or receive, 95% of them make me nervous. So, whenever I hear the phone ringing, the adrenaline rushes through my veins, and the only thing I can hear is my heartbeat pounding against my chest. If I get nervous when I’m calling for food delivery, you can imagine what I was going through this time. As I was punching the numbers on my cell phone, I swear that the noise that the bus made as it passed by was like the gentle and almost seductive sound that a small humming bird makes as it flies from one flower to another compared with a train wreck—the train being my 

heart beat of course! After the long prelude we finally talked over the phone. She was still very thrilled and touched by my motivation. After a few questions about my living situation (I had a nice bedroom in the home of Gena Raps, a piano teacher, within walking distance of MSM), she gave me a date and a time for my second “first lesson.”

After six months here, I am in New York ready to take lessons from her and be accepted at the Manhattan School of Music. If I had said that to myself a couple of years ago, I probably would have sighed and said, “Just a dream, which I wish were true.” Actually this brings up some memories… Over eight years ago, my mom and I started to look on the internet for music schools in the US. We searched all the famous names, Juilliard, New England Conservatory, Cleveland Institute of Music and so on, but for some reason we only requested information about Manhattan School of Music. A couple of weeks later, I remember going to the post office one morning, and there was this big package with the Manhattan School of Music label on the outside. You can imagine the level of excitement an 11-year-old kid has when he receives a package. It doesn’t matter if he knows what’s inside or not, the only important thing is that it has his name. The fact that it said “Mr. Turkkan Osman” made me feel even more significant and proud. 

After all these years I look at the envelope and the catalog and I say to myself, “If only you knew.” This brings a couple of random thoughts to my head. It could only be coincidence—I don’t know—but I like to believe it is destiny. Maybe there’s such thing as destiny after all. I mean, so far in my life, events—from the smallest to the most significant ones—have had a rather suspicious outcome. 

The Free Violin/Piano Recital at St. Paul’s Church set for Thursday, May 7 at 5:00pm is postponed until further notice.

When the concert is rescheduled, Turkkan Osman Macías, a young violinist from San Miguel, and pianist Liz Stone, a long-time San Miguel resident, will present a free one-hour recital. Turkkan will be playing his 250 year-old Italian violin, and Liz will be playing the Pro Musica’s 1927 Steinway piano.

The program will include these seven works: Marchita el Alma by Manuel M. Ponce, “Adagio” and “Presto” from Sonata in G minor by J.S. Bach, Romance in F Major by Beethoven, Malagueña (Danzas Españolas) by Sarasate, “Fantasia” for solo violin by Turkkan Osman Macias, E flat Major Violin and Piano Sonata by Mozart and “Fantasia” for piano by Turkkan Osman Macias.

This recital is offered to the community in thanks for the financial support for Turkkan over the past two years that has enabled him to audition and be accepted to the prestigious Manhattan School of Music (MSM) in New York City. He will start there as a full-time student in September with the intention of obtaining his Bachelor Degree in Music, after four years of study. Entrance to MSM is highly competitive, and only one in three applicants from all over the world is accepted. Turkkan will study violin with Ms. Patinka Kopec, a long time teacher at MSM who is Associate to the world-famous violinist Pinchas Zuckerman.

This financial support – from a group of Friends of Turkkan and grants from the San Miguel Community Foundation and the Bernard Weisman Foundation – enabled Turkkan to attend the well-known Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado in 2007, and to live and study the violin in New York City from July 2008 through March, 2009. His interesting report on this 9 month sojourn in that big city is given separately in this issue of Atención.

Additional financial support is being sought for Turkkan to minimize the amount of student loans that he must obtain to cover his tuition, health insurance, living and travel expenses. Please contact Russ Archibald at 152-7156 or via email at <russell_archibald@yahoo.com > if you wish to contribute to this support, for which US tax-deductibility is available if desired.