Live at Lake Effect is our music series featuring local and nationally touring artists performing in the Lake Effect Surf Shop in Shorewood, Wisconsin.
We brought the Lake Effects together, along with Visionary Studios, to showcase musicians once a month through an interview with the band exclusively on Lake Effect, plus filmed performances.
This episode features virtuoso guitarist René Izquierdo. Born in Cuba, Izquierdo is a unique artist and passionate educator whose career has been dedicated to inspiring individuals and connecting communities. For the last 18 years he’s been based here in Milwaukee leading UW-Milwaukee’s classical guitar program.
Before UWM's guitar program was established, there was a collaboration between the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and UWM where guitar majors would take guitar lessons at the conservatory and take the rest of the curriculum for their bachelor's degree at UWM. Scott Edmonds, who became Dean of the School of Music at UWM, had a vision to create a guitar department in 2004 according to Izquierdo.
He was attending graduate school at Yale University and living in New York when he was invited to play a concert and give a master class for students at UWM. Shortly after that in June of 2004, Izquierdo was asked if he would be interested in moving to the Midwest.
"[It was] a big change. I was pretty much West Coast/East Coast kind of guy, like flying above the Midwest and never even landed in the middle," he recalls. "But I have to say that the last 18 years has been a true pleasure to be here to create one of the best guitar programs actually in the United States, and one of the premieres in the world — soon enough, if they let me, I'll make that happen."
"I love teaching, my calling is teaching, but if I stop performing then I cannot demand of [my students] the same way as I would demand of myself."
Izquierdo says that he never intended to be a professional musician, but it happened to be the best way he could get out of Cuba.
"I escaped communism, socialism, you know, I wouldn't even say it's either — it's a dictatorship. So, 1995 my mother was asking me to come and live with her — like in the United States. I got the visa to to come to the United States and then the Cuban government was never going to allow me out," he recalls. "... I knew they were gonna expel me from the university and then I would be drafted by mandatory army recruitment and that would be five years, I will lose the visa to come to the U.S. and then I will have to do everything again."
So, thanks to information a family member sent about music competitions outside of Cuba, Izquierdo applied and "never came back." He even remembers the exact date and time he arrived in the United States: June 9, 1995, at 7:50 PM on a Friday night in the Miami airport. "It was a wonderful experience and jarring at the same time because everything is so different," Izquierdo notes. "I remember the smells. Everything smelled like something — even in the cars. I was just like overwhelmed by that."
"Little by little we got all my family out of Cuba, we don't have anyone left there," he adds. "Having said that, I have to say that not everything was bad. Education was quite remarkable [in Cuba] so I got all the roots and that's what allowed me when I came to the United states to be able to audition at Yale University and get a scholarship and attend for my masters and then postgraduate degree in Paris."
Izquierdo continues, "So there were some good things that we can take from that system that works — like I do think that education shouldn't be a business model because we are actually juggling with the country's future. We need to make sure that education takes the place that it belongs to create professionals that are competent. Because the United states is always being good about bringing talent in, but we need to actually also keep building the talent, developing and keeping them here."
In addition to his work at UWM, Izquierdo still keeps a robust performance schedule with over 70 engagements a year all over the world as a soloist, chamber musician, or a guest soloist with orchestras. He believes that without performing himself, he can't give his best to his students.
"I [tell] my students all the time that if you think like students you will get student results, and you need to think on the larger scale, the bigger picture ... I love teaching, my calling is teaching, but if I stop performing then I cannot demand of them the same way as I would demand of myself," Izquierdo explains.
It's hard to imagine Izquierdo's life not revolving around music, but he admits he never thought he would be a professional musician. Izquierdo's mother was a ballerina in the Cuban Ballet for many years, and even she didn't want the life of an artist for her son. "Growing up I saw many of them dancing and went to many productions, but I tell you this my mother didn't want me to be a musician. She was like, 'Really son this is a life that is an uphill battle your entire life.'"
However for Izquierdo, playing guitar was a passion he could not be away from. He even kept a guitar at a friend's house so he could play.
"[Being a professional musician] was never intended to be, but however the passion was always there."
"I never thought I was going to be a musician, truly, but when I came to the United states [with] my degree from Cuba I had to start again as a freshman," he notes. "And because guitarist is a skill it offered me the opportunity to apply at Yale University, and then that's how all of a sudden I became a professional guitarist in the United states. It was never intended to be, but however the passion was always there."
"I find myself blessed because when I go to teach it's not work," Izquierdo adds. "I never feel that it's work but having said that, you need to learn how to balance your life so you have a successful personal life, professional life and also as an educator. So it's a balance that I'm still struggling to get, but you know some things are meant to be certain ways and what I learned with the years is not to fight them."
SET LIST
- Mirándote by Eduardo Martín (0:26)
- Guajira a Mi Madre by Antonio Rojas (3:34)
- Son del Barrio by Eduardo Martin (7:23)
MUSICIAN
- René Izquierdo: guitar
Live at Lake Effect Team:
- Executive Producers: Audrey Nowakowski & Trapper Schoepp
- Audio Engineering: Jason Rieve
- Location: Lake Effect Surf Shop in Milwaukee
- Production Company: Visionary Studios
- Camera Op: Brad Roehl, Kieran Walter Sundaram, & Brandon Stearns
