La Sinfonica Del Barrio The Barrio Symphony Founded 1974 Founder/Director Peter A. Quesada F. Our Founder and Music Director Peter Alfonso Quesada y Fimbres is a product of the barrios of East Los Angeles. He began the study of the violin at the Los Angeles Music and Art School at the age of 11. He studied with Ida Pepper and Aaron Kaminsky. Formed his first ensemble at the age of 13. He went on to study theory and composition. He took a master class in conducting at UCLA under Leonard Berstein. While @ USC at Centro Chicano he had his own radio show on KUSC as announcer many times introducing new works and interviewing special guest artists from Zubin Mehta to students at the USC School Of Music. While serving in the United States Air Force he formed a band at the request of General Eubanks. Upon discharge from the USAF, he married and had children. He looked in his community for an orchestra to join. Finding none, he formed the Carson Symphony. Later, seeing a lack of an orchestra to serve the Latino community in East Los Angeles where he later moved his family, he formed La Sinfonica Del Barrio/ The Barrio Symphony in 1974 to great acclaim and with much success. The orchestra drew from the finest musicians from the barrios of East Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley, Lincoln Heights, and from other neighborhoods such as Beverly Hills, Westwood, Santa Monica. The word was out that this outstanding orchestra ventured into the Hispanic repertoire along with the standard Western European Classical fare. His music career has taken him to Europe, North Africa, Japan, Mexico and many other places on the globe where he has either conducted or performed as a violinist. Among some of he orchestras he has conducted is The Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. He has performed with such artists as Louis Belling, Alicia Keyes, Whitney Houston, Tony Bennet, NSYNC, Rod Stewart, Juan Gabriel, Luis Miguel, SEAL, Sean P. (?) Diddy, and many more. From this orchestra have come many excellent musicians who have gone onto world class orchestras such as, the San Francisco Symphony, The Beersheba Orchestra (Israel), Miami Symphony, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Cape Town South Africa Symphony, The Bamberg Symphony, and other orchestras in Europe and Asia. Maestro Quesada continues to teach privately, and continues his work to bring music to the barrios and awaken that which lies in the hearts of so many youngsters: the love of music whatever the genre.
GENESIS Established as a non-profit entity, our mission is to serve the community by providing classical music training to the young people of the barrios of Southern California , and to perform for the community. Performing the repertoire of Latino and Hispanic classical composers, and the showcasing of our community’s own new composers are practices that make this orchestra unique, and help to instill pride throughout our community for our wonderfully rich culture. And one we wish to share. Although sometimes our communities are located in the less advantaged sections of the city, we still produce great numbers of talented young people. Unfortunately, because of lack of funding, much of this great resource goes un-tapped and undeveloped.
From our founder: “La Sinfonica Del Barrio grew out of a genuine need in our community-the need for a people with a common tongue, values, and heritage to express itself through one of Nature’s prime-most urges: the making of music.”
“La Sinfonica broto de una genuina necescidad en nuestra comunidad-la necesidad de un pueblo que comparte un idioma, valores, y heredencia de expresarse por un medio que mas urge por su naturaleza: el de producir musica." |