COUNCIL TALK 01/2021 - The digital magazine of the World Choir Council

(Music in the Neighborhoods) appointed me as a flute
instructor, where my passion for teaching captivated
me and I developed to become the Music Director
of this musical program. Here I learned to teach, to
conduct orchestra and mainly to be a leader.
A few years later, at the young age of fifteen, my
interest in the art of conducting began, receiving
constant courses under the tutelage of the Swiss
maestro Urs Leonhardt Steiner. The lack of choral
conductors in my country caused my career to begin
without professional studies, conducting various
groups while still a young girl, thus returning all that
I had learned from my own experiences, becoming
the only female conductor who conducted alongside
teachers with a long career in the country.
Reyna Maritza
Somarriba Molina
(Nicaragua)
“I grew up in a poor neighborhood, I studied my
primary and secondary school on the floor, because
there were no desks, I thought that was normal until
I discovered otherwise, but I was very happy. In spite
of the material things I did not have, I received a lot of
love and the best education. I got the best gift I could
get as a child, music, I was taught with love, I was
filled with passion. Music transformed my life and I
am convinced that with it we can transform society,
for that reason I am and will continue to work hard to
give access to music to those who want it.
I was lucky to grow up immersed in music, because
only 4 blocks from our house there was a cultural
center where I received my first musical knowledge
with father Angel Torrellas (Spanish priest). At the
age of eleven, the program Música en los Barrios
Unfortunately, there was no possibility to study music
in Nicaragua, so I had the dream to go abroad to
professionalize in choral conducting. And this dream
became reality very quickly. Although I did not have
the economic solvency to pay for my studies, I was
admitted to the National University and decided
to leave my home country and embark on a new
adventure to Costa Rica. I was supported in this by
Pan y Arte, the organization that sponsors the Casa
de los Tres Mundos Foundation (where I currently
work). Thanks to them and the scholarship from the
university, I was able to complete my studies in record
time and with honors in 2011 under the guidance of
Master David Ramirez Alpizar.
Music in the Neighborhoods, the place in my home
country that taught me to love teaching, is still one
of my projects and my heart. While studying in Costa
Rica, I used every vacation time to teach the teachers
there and organize concerts, even from afar.
Currently I direct the two schools of the C3M
Foundation, Música en los Barrios which formed the
person I am and the Casa de los Tres Mundos music
school which was the new challenge upon my return
to Nicaragua.
I am a musical educator at heart, very curious and I
believe strongly in open, inclusive, quality education.
I am fully confident that if we invest our time and
resources in social programs, they will give us the
best gift, better human beings.”
WELCOME
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