Luis Zea (photo by Mauricio Lopez)
Venezuelan guitarist and maestro Luis Zea will visit SUNY Fredonia to offer a master class on Tuesday, Feb. 13, from 5 to 7 p.m., in Diers Recital Hall.
The session is free and open to the public.
With over 40 years of professional experience and worldwide recognition by colleagues, critics and audiences alike, Mr. Zea is known for his versatile talent as a performing and recording artist, arranger, composer, teacher and author.
Luis Zea is a highly sensitive man of intense passion when speaking about his country, and the impact to the students and to the campus community was revelatory and poignant. Additionally, his coaching of our student performers in his master class was positively impactful.” - James Piorkowski
SUNY Fredonia Distinguished Professor James Piorkowski has known Zea for more than three decades, initially meeting him while both were teaching a classical guitar master class in Caracas, Venezuela in 1991. Mr. Piorkowski was then on tour with the Buffalo Guitar Quartet.
“Through that relationship, we established an exchange program between SUNY Fredonia and the University Institute of Musical Studies in Caracas, where a number of our classical guitar majors went to study with Maestro Zea,” Piorkowski said. “They were very fortunate to have had that opportunity to study with such a special teacher.”
Zea has visited the campus on at least three occasions – twice when he filled in for Piorkowski while he was on sabbatical leave, and in 2019, when he conducted a four-day residency that included presentations and classes focusing on the devastating impacts of political and economic upheaval on the cultural and musical aspects of Venezuelan society.
“Luis Zea is a highly sensitive man of intense passion when speaking about his country, and the impact to the students and to the campus community was revelatory and poignant. Additionally, his coaching of our student performers in his master class was positively impactful,” Piorkowski said.
Hailed by Cuban master Leo Brouwer as “the ideal soloist,” Zea is a direct disciple of the legendary Venezuelan composer and guitarist Antonio Lauro (1917-1986).
The master class is sponsored by and funded by the Fredonia Guitar Society, a Student Association group.
