From Spain to Round Top

Alicia Maiz Alonso is this year’s intern for Iverson Eliopoulos, the Festival Hill program director.

Alicia is from Castro Urdiales, a small town in Spain. She is interning for orchestra management, where her job is to set up the orchestras, work with the stage crew, plan how to set up for a concert, and set up the lighting. According to Alicia, “I basically handle the more logistical aspects of the orchestra.”

Alicia is a doctorate student in violin performance at the University of Iowa, and is going into her sophomore year. Alicia came to America so she could get her masters degree.

“I was born in Spain, and the musical education is very different there. Here, you usually start playing an instrument in high school, because of the band or orchestra. In Spain if you want to learn an instrument you go to a conservatory, and your training is usually around six years, and once you finish your training you go to a normal college, so we start very young with professional training, and I feel like here when you want to take music more seriously you take classes or you go to a pre-college program, and we usually start at around eleven years old.” She continues, “I went to the Conservatoria de Leioa and I did my undergrad in Spain.”

Alicia began her journey with music at age four, when her parents asked her if she wanted to play the piano or the violin. “It was really important to them that I played, so I played the violin until I was about to go to college. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do anything else because the violin had always come easy to me, so I continued with music and came to America to continue studying. Now that I’m getting my doctorate I want to learn not only the performance aspect of orchestra, but also the administrative aspects, like the “behind the scenes.”

OnceAlicia finishes studying, she plans on working at a symphony. “If I could, I would like to work at a symphony, or any non-profit organisation, on the administrative side, and that would be my dream job, so basically what I’m interning here for.” She continues, “My experience here has been very different, in Spain we mainly focus on the performance side, and not so much the other things, and if you’re trying to do what I’m interning for as a career, you have to try and research on your own, while here you can go to school and study music industry. So it’s been very interesting learning about all the different types of things that I can do here and the different opportunities that I can get to, and that’s really why I’m here.”

When asked why she chose Festival Hill, Alica replied, “I wanted to stay somewhere I could get the experience. I did a very big search through the whole U.S, and this program just seemed very interesting because of all the people they bring here.”

According to Alicia, her experience interning at Festival Hill has been very eye opening, and has helped her learn how to overcome language barriers.

“I’m getting to know a lot of people,” she said. “Musicians tend to be difficult to work with, and I think that that’s helped me learn how to communicate with them. I’ve also had some trouble with language barriers. I do announcements everyday before orchestra rehearsals, and I get anxious trying to speak to everybody. Having that many people looking at you while you’re not speaking your first language can be very scary, so this internship has been very helpful teaching me how to build up my confidence when speaking.

“I love Festival Hill because it brings such a huge variety of very special musicians, and watching them come together and collaborate to make music has been very special to me.”

If you would like to purchase tickets for Festival Hills concerts, you can visit their website at FestivalHill.org