• Submitted by: admin
• Arts and Culture
• Caribbean
• culture an traditions
• Education
• international
• Music
• Society
• 07 / 12 / 2008

---

Awards and recognitions in international competitions that took place in Paris also allowed him the possibility to offer concerts as a guest in different French institutions for two and a half years.

“I came here with eleven years, but I must say that the bases of the knowledge I got in Cuba were the best starting point to face the challenges of learning a new language and to adapt myself to the piano teaching style in France,” he said.

In an interview with Prensa Latina, González Buajasán commented that in order to be admitted to the Chopin conservatoire he had to interpret variations on the theme "Ah Vous dirai-je, Maman" by Mozart, which opened him the doors to the institution.

“Afterwards came along the possibility to enter the National region Conservatoire (CNR) from Paris, where I faced my greatest challenge in order to enter the Specialized Piano Circle of just 25 places and many contenders from several countries to the age of twenty five years old,” he explained.

He managed to pass the test with congratulations by Stephane Blet, member of the jury and a student of Horowitz, for being the youngest one and achieving a high punctuation after interpreting the Sonata number 26 Es-dur, Opus 81 by Beethoven and Reflets dans l’eau by Claude Debussy.

He tenderly remembered the Cuban teachers María Matilde Alea, Lucy Varona and Isabel Clavera, who gave way to his love for piano music.

“Since I was very young I was very impressed by music in television and at first I went for violin, but then I started to prefer the piano. Afterwards in the Alejandro García Caturla School in Havana I was like living my dream,” he said.

There are other important names that he doesn’t want to leave unsaid now when he seems to walk towards age majority in the instrument, professors Teresita Junco and Hortensia Upmann from Cuba, and Edouard Exerjean and Billy Eidi, from Paris.

Out of all of the awards he achieved here, two first places and a second place; González Buajasán showed the greatest satisfaction for the Flame competition that took place in the City of Light. “There were participating pianists of up to twenty-five years of age from over thirty countries. It was very moving to achieve the first place in an encounter whose greatest category is the Great Award,” he said modestly.

But more than anything else, no matter how flattering they all were, the most important thing is to have learned to study on my own, to search for information in scores and to listen to myself, he points out.

(Cubarte)