Blog 8: My favourite wild animal

My favourite wild animal is the Condor.
The condor it's a bird with falcons characteristics: Is a really big animal, lives in high places like mountains, and is a animal in danger of extinction.
The Condor is familiar to all the Chileans because is one of the emblem animals with the Huemúl.
On my past vacations in Osorno I and my friends go to walk at the forest, in there we found a beautifull waterfall (maybe with 50 meters of high) and we climb it. At the top we see all the forest, the Llanquihue Lake and the border of the lake and, fortunately, Condors flying arround. That was a great experience for us and specially for me because travel to the south isn't easy for me and also see this beautiful animal... wow! a really nice adventure!

In Chile we have a famous comic called "Condorito", it's a Condor! and he lives en Pelotillehue, place of his anecdotes. Pepo, his creator, uses this animal because he thinks the Condor is the most representative animal of this country.

Blog 7: Lang Lang

Musical interpretation is a really hard area of the music studies. In particular, piano studies take around fourteen years of studies in a conservatory.

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Lizt are maybe the most important composers for this instrument. They music are not easy to play, you need days, months and years of practice to play just the rhythms and notes…

Lang Lang is a 31 year old pianist. He comes from China and is one of the most famous pianists (living) in the world. His interpretations are full of energy, passion and grace… Lang Lang is the perfect musician with supernatural skills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKILwVH_MdM

When I listen for first time the music of Lang Lang I was not surprised, but, when I see his version of Tchaikovsky’s 1^st piano concerto I understand why he is a really talented music star.

A funny fact is his recent participation with Metallica (yeah! the trash metal band) at the Grammy awards… A friend told me “that was ridiculous”, but I think “It’s great! I hope to play my classical guitar with Metallica!”

Blog 6: My favourite movie

My favourite movie is the Star Wars III: The empire Strikes Back

I see this movie when I was a child, the special effects an the ligth sables fights made me crazy, I just loved this movie! Later to see this movie my mom bought me a video game for nintendo of this movie and in there I can understand better the argument of the movie.

I think this is a one of the most important movies of the Starwars saga because is in this film when LKuke Skywalker beggins is trainning like a Jedi to figth the dark side... It's memorable the moment whrn Darck Vader says to him "I'm your father" ¡It's a classic line of the cinema!

Throgth the time I understand the sense of justice inneded in this movie, the heroism of the diferent characters and the importance of this movie to the history of the cienema... Other think what I like of this movie is the music, John Williams it's an amazing composer! his teacher was be Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco, an Italian composer what I know very well because the last year I played a music work of him.

5th blog: The Annual Running of the UChile

This picture was taken on October 27th, 2013. It shows the begining of the annual running of the University of Chile in conmemoration of the 171th anniversary of this institution.
This race was started in Pio Nono, in the front of Laws faculty and the competition has been divided in two categories: 10 Kilometers (people with red number in the shirt) and 5 kilometers (people with green numbers on shirt)... If you look with atention, in the middle of the photo you will see a guy with a white/black cap and number 847 on his shirt... That is me!

The annual running of the university is one of the many activities in celebration of the anniversary: Music shows, concerts with the OSCH (Symphonic Orchestra of the University of Chile), parties, ceremonies with contests and awards to the professors, etc...
I like so much running and sports in general, so, I hope to keep running and practicing sports in different activities of the University like the TIF (Faculty Tournaments), the JOE (Annual student's olimpic games) and others.

4th Blog: "Career related blog" - Musical analisys

One of the most interesting courses in my carrer is musical analysis. It basically consists of knowing how music works. I studied analysis for the first time three years ago, and now I am an assistant teacher in this area.

I discovered, through time, a natural skill to teach and for this reason I would like to be a professor in a music conservatory.

But, musical analysis isn't the only course in which I have some skills... In music interpretation too.

I wish to study a Master's degree in Basel - Switzerland with Pablo Marquez, an Argentinian classical guitarrist. This Master course consists in studying music of the XX century and lots of musical styles like dodecaphony or free atonality, for example.

Maybe in the future I will teach these two study areas of music -analysis and interpretation- but I've a lot of interests like conducting and composing.

2nd Blog: New academic semester

This is my 5th year of studies at arts faculty in University of Chile. In this semester my courses are "Guitar V" and "Chamber music", also I have languages studies like "English III" in INAP and "German", this last one in laws faculty.

This semester I want to do many things like play a solo Classical Guitar concert in Laws Faculty and write a article to the Chilean music review.

Also I plan to participate in extracurricular activities like the "TIF" - Inter-faculty sports tournaments- with the swimming arts team, or participate in "Misión País"  -voluntary works in poor zones of the country-.

Well, this is just the begining of the year and I've a lot of energy to do all what I want to do! so... Let's work!

1st Blog: Autobiography

My name is Gonzalo López, I was born in Santiago - Chile in September 17, 1988.
When I was 9 I took my first Guitar class at school, and now I study Classical Guitar at the University of Chile.
My hobbies are sports like swimming and running, and I practice them about 10 years ago.

My parents aren't from Santiago, my dad is from Mininco which is around 2 hours from Los Ángeles in the south; and my mom is from Rancagua, maybe one and a half hours from Santiago. Every year I travel to Mininco on holidays or in the middle of the year just to relax because it's a beautiful place and I hope some day to move there to live and work on my own farm.

14th April - 2014