In this episode, I interview composers Josh Rodriguez and Xavier Beteta about their new project, a composition festival in Guatemala called Guatemala Contemporanea. Both are professors of composition in the United States but are originally from South America. Josh is from Argentina and Xavier is from Guatemala. They have joined together to create this festival now entering its 2nd year. They will give us all the details as well as share some of their thoughts on the definition of success, what musical and non-musical skills are important for composers to have and where they find their inspiration.
Topics in this episode include:
Bringing together composers and performers in a place that does not have a unified "classical" music
Making an investment in an area that does not have a strong composition program
Partnering with other musicians, ensembles, and festivals in another country
the national instrument of Guatemala (the marimba)
Ensuring that musicians are familiar with their own heritage that already exists in the classical music world
the definition of success as a composer
What is "inspiration" and what is not
Josh Rodriguez
Known for his energetic rhythms, rich harmonic language, and striking colors, Colombian-American composer Josh Rodríguez (b. 1982) continues to gain recognition as an emerging composer and collaborator on a national and international scale. Born in Argentina and raised in Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States, Rodríguez's musical imagination has been formed by this bilingual multicultural heritage.
Rodríguez collaborates regularly with theatre and film directors and has received notable concert commissions in a wide range of musical genres: works include Dos Palabras (winner of the inaugural Springfield Chamber Chorus Composition Competition 2022), When Stone Becomes Forest (winner of THE AMERICAN PRIZE - Professional Band Division 2022), Partita Picosa (a 5-movement piece for solo piano), Contra Spem Spero (violin chamber concerto), and That Crazed Girl Improvising (piano trio), all which were finalists for the AMERICAN PRIZE (TIKAL, for concert band received Honorable Mention, 2021).
He's written numerous choral works, music for jazz trio and big band, original scores for Courtyard Shakespeare Festival's productions of Hamlet (2019), Much Ado About Nothing (2022), Richard III (2022), and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (2019), and CBU Theatre's productions of Love's Labour's Lost (2020) and She Stoops to Conquer (2021). In addition to concert and theatre music, Rodríguez has scored numerous independent film projects several of which have appeared in international film festivals and received special awards. His most recent film score is for an adaptation Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST by Rebel Run Studios.
Rodríguez (ASCAP) is composer-in-residence of the Corona Symphony Orchestra, and currently serves as Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the Elmhurst University. He regularly contributes to various arts & culture blogs and is on the Leadership Team of Deus-Ex-Musica an ecumenical and interfaith initiative that brings musicians, clergy, and non-musicians together for concerts and conversations about the intersection of faith and new music.
Rodríguez earned his MM at the Cleveland Institute of Music and upon winning the Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship moved west to study a doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research at UCLA culminated with his dissertation on Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera.
Xavier Beteta
Guatemalan-American composer Xavier Beteta studied piano at the National Conservatory with Consuelo Medinilla. At age 18, he was awarded the first-prize at the Augusto Ardenois National Piano Competition and third-prize at the Rafael Alvarez Ovalle Composition Competition in Guatemala. He continued his piano studies in the United States with Argentinean pianist Sylvia Kersenbaum and with Ukranian pianist Sergei Polusmiak. He also attended master-classes with pianists Massimiliano Damerini and Daniel Rivera in Italy. Xavier has performed in different venues in the United States, Europe and Latin America and has been a soloist with the Guatemalan National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Augusto Ardenois, and the Camellia Symphony in Sacramento.
As a composer, Xavier did most of his early studies privately with Guatemalan composer Rodrigo Asturias. He also studied privately with Donald Harris, a student of Max Deutsch and visited Richard Hoffmann, a student of Schoenberg. In 2013 he won the Silver Medal at the fourth International Antonin Dvorak Composition Competition in Prague. Xavier studied music theory at the University of Cincinnati where his thesis adviced by Steven Cahn was ranked no. 4 in the National Best-Seller Dissertation List. He later, obtained his Ph.D. in composition at the University of California San Diego where he studied with Roger Reynolds (primary advisor), Chinary Ung and Philippe Manoury..
Xavier has been a composer in residence at the Naperville Youth Symphony and his compositions have been performed in diverse festivals such as Festival Musica in Strasbourg, France, Darmstadt Composition Summer Courses in Germany, June in Buffalo, SICPP in Boston, Opera Theater Festival of Lucca, Italy and by ensembles such as Accroche Note, Ensemble SoundScape, Ensemble Signal conducted by Brad Lubman, UCSD Palimpsest, the Mivos Quartet, Formosa Quartet, The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players under Steven Schick, Picosa, Lakeshore Rush, the Guatemalan National Symphony, The Camellia Symphony, The Naperville Youth Symphony, the Monterey Youth Symphony, The Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra and the Wheaton College Orchestra.
Xavier also holds a law degree from Salmon P. Chase College of Law and his diverse interests include cultural property, copyright, poetry, and tango. In 2018, he founded the tango group “ensemble orillero” in San Diego California. He is currently an Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Wheaton College, serves as the Vice-President of New Music Chicago and is part of the board of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Latino Alliance.
https://www.xavierbeteta.com/
To contribute to Guatemala Contemporanea, go to the Go Fund Me at this link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-fund-the-guatemala-music-festival-2025
Be sure to subscribe to The Musicking Community Podcast so you never miss an episode!
Share this post