A concert for a hundred students has a different dynamic than a full auditorium. There's no place to hide — Not for the public, not for the musicians. Each reaction is visible, every gesture counts, and the connection between those who touch and those who listen can become something genuinely close. That was what happened on Monday at the Valeriano González Primary School, when Fundación Música que Humaniza arrived with The Treasure of the GreatThe Toxic Brass and Fernando Guajardo.
The program began, as its name suggests, with a search. Before the first note sounded, the students went into the dynamics of the treasure: an exploration that led them to discover not only music, but also what archaeology is and how human beings track what previous generations left behind. In this case, the treasure were the great composers. — Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Bizet, Offenbach, Rossini — and the works that are still alive centuries after it has been written.
For just over 40 minutes, Fernando Guajardo was guiding the students by this repertoire: the stories behind the composers, the musical forms that distinguish them, the instruments of the metal quintet that made them sound. The Toxic Brass put the sound; Fernando put the context. Together they turned the school yard into something that looked quite like a discovery room.
The Bizet Torer Choir brought, as in each presentation of this program, that moment when the public ceases to be public. Fernando invited the students to sing, and they sang. A hundred voices that may have never heard Bizet find in his melody something natural enough to join without hesitation. Few things better illustrate the purpose of these concerts.
But the moment that best summarizes what this visit was came to the end, in a completely spontaneous way. The students of Valeriano González, grateful and fond of those who had accompanied them that morning, decided to adopt Fernando Guajardo as their grandfather. Not as a rhetorical figure, but with the genuine conviction of children who when they like it, say so. For someone who has been bringing classical music closer to those who have never had access to it for years, there is hardly any better recognition than that.
