José Antonio Méndez Padrón

Director and founder of the Symphony Orchestra of the University of the Arts, of the ISA. He participated in the first edition of the Children's Festival Cantándole al sol, where the stage, the lights, the applause, were what defined his love and desire to venture into music. He received classes abroad, at several universities in the United States (Carnegie Mellon School of Music, and the Jacobs School of Music), at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, at the Higher Conservatory of Music in Vienna.

Son of José Antonio Méndez Valencia, director of the Chamber Choir of Matanzas and Lilian Padrón, dancer and choreographer, heading the Danza Espiral company. This great director of the Symphony Orchestra of the University of the Arts carries two cultural amulets as his surnames. His great childhood dream was to belong to the Matanzas baseball team, playing the center field position.

As a child, he began to sing in the children's choir of the Coral Center of Matanzas, under the direction of his father José Antonio Méndez Valencia, and thus was educated by taste and with a formation of the most comprehensive musical conception.

He participated in the first edition of the Children's Festival Cantándole al Sol, where the stage, the lights, the applause, was what defined his love and desire to venture into music.

As a student at the Professional School of Art of Matanzas, maestro Enrique Pérez Mesa is appointed as director of the National Symphony Orchestra, it is then that José Antonio is chosen to direct the chamber orchestra of the school, even though he did not have skill, he exercised the knowledge he possessed of the choir.

Later he took classes with Enrique Pérez Mesa himself and Alberto García, director of the Quinteto Fantasía, to enter the Higher Institute of Art in the specialty of Orchestral Conducting.

He had the opportunity to study with distinguished professors such as Jorge López Marín and María Felicia Pérez, in Cuba. He received classes abroad, at several universities in the United States, at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, at the Higher Conservatory of Music in Vienna.

Initially, a group of young students from the ISA school gathered, along with some professional musician friends and the Ars Longa Group, and they began to perform concerts together, somewhat to meet the need that existed in the center for work with chamber music and orchestra.

Eventually, this Orchestra was founded on January 27, 2009, with young graduates of artistic education for the most part, performing concerts with great love.

José Antonio Méndez studied two careers simultaneously, something very uncommon in Cuban education, Choral Conducting and Orchestral Conducting. He has sung with some of the country's main choirs, for two years he played the harpsichord with the Ars Longa group and is assistant director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba.

Pepito has said: "I wanted to be a ballplayer but I sang and attended an art school. My father (José Antonio Méndez) is director of the Chamber Choir of Matanzas and my mom (Liliam Padrón) directs the Danza Espiral company, also from Matanzas.

"Music for me was a game and I thought that, if it was like that, then it would be excellent to study it. If you analyze it, the verb to play, referring to music, in English is play and in French it is jouer, in both if you translate it literally it means to play, I don't know why in Spanish we call it tocar if music is a game, it is something that gives you pleasure. One must have priorities in life. School is good, but the study program could be better. I was a good student because I did my homework and did well on exams, but I missed a lot of classes. I went to many rehearsals, organized the orchestra, had presentations. I would not trade a master class from a good musician for a lecture on a subject that I am sure will not contribute as much to my career. If I could modify the music study program in Cuba I would dedicate more time to Chamber Music, Orchestral Conducting, Music History, Solfege and singing in choirs, which is very important for all instrumentalists.

"If I had not been a musician I would have liked to be a chef. There are many places where the chef comes out in the middle of the night to sing... if I had the time I would like to have a place like that. I listen to a lot of jazz and Cuban music. And I dance, not very well, but I like to lead casino wheels. My experiences outside of Cuba have shown me that we are much better than we think, that we have very good preparation despite the material scarcities we live with. One always has paradigms. But many times the people who achieve that dream, or reach that dreamed place, realize that it is not what they expected.

I have been in Austria and I have seen the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, and I discovered that their musicians can work together for five years and have barely greeted each other twice in all that time.

"They may be close to musical perfection but that is not the orchestra I want. Every concert I do I visualize so much, I organize it, I study it so much, that it is like a realized dream.

Graduate of the Higher Institute of Art of Cuba in Choral Conducting with María Felicia Pérez and Orchestral Conducting with Jorge López Marín. He has been a participant in postgraduate courses at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg with maestros Jorge Rotter and Peter Gülke, and at Carnegie Mellon School of Music in Pittsburgh and Jacobs School of Music in Indiana with Ronald Zollman.

Since 2009 he is titular director of the Symphony Orchestra of the ISA attached to the Lyceum Mozartiano of Havana and since 2016 of the Orchestra of the Lyceum of Havana, with which he has conducted concert tours and participated in events such as the Mozartwoche of Salzburg, the Sacred Music Festival of Quito, the Sacred Music Festival of Mérida and the Arts of Cuba Festival at the Kennedy Center Washington. In 2012 he is appointed Associate Director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba and in 2018 titular director of the Symphony Orchestra of Matanzas-Cuba. He has also conducted the Camerata Salzburg, Salzburg Soloists, and the Symphony Orchestra of Georgetown.

Since 2015 he is Musical Director of the Mozart-Havana Festival which is celebrated annually in the Cuban capital. He has conducted world premieres and first recordings of Cuban music from the 18th to the 21st century with the Cabinet of Musical Heritage "Esteban Salas". With his recordings he has been a winner of several Cubadisco Awards in concert music, from 2011 to 2019; making special mention of Musical Renovation Collection in Cuba (2011), Between Strings (2014), Cathedral Music of Havana and Santiago (2016) and Esteban Salas (2018).