Next to "prodigy" in the dictionary could be a picture of Yunior Lopez. He landed a contract with the Las Vegas Philharmonic when he was 17 years old. While at the prestigious Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto, Canada, he started the Annex Quartet. He debuted at Carnegie Hall at the age of 20. He founded the Dr. Shirley Linzey Young Artists Orchestra of Las Vegas when he was 25, and is now the executive and music director of YAO. But asked about his success, Lopez is quick to point out that luck has had something to do with it — "being in the right place at the right time," he says. Then, he adds, it's up to you to deliver. "That's where the hard work and dedication comes in."
In advance of YAO's 10th anniversary concert gala, Lopez sat down with Desert Companion to talk about his path to Las Vegas, and the youth orchestra's place in his heart.
Can you tell me a story about the orchestra that really captures its essence for you?
I'm originally from Las Vegas — I grew up here, and I moved to Canada. I lived there for about six years, and I never actually thought I would move back to Las Vegas. I really didn't. I fell in love with Canada and so forth, but eventually I met a girl, and I fell in love with her, and she got a job in Las Vegas, and I still have family here, so it was very natural to easily move back. And I traveled so much during that period in 2014-2015. Eventually that girl said to me, "You need to do something in this community. We live here together. Otherwise we're done."
I started to really look at how the community had changed. The Smith Center had been built — that was not there when I was a student — and I started to look at what the community needed. And that's sort of how I came around to creating the orchestra. For me, that first year was probably very impactful for me, because the students were the ones that really recruited themselves. They were the ones that were really hungry for a challenge and for something different. So, in a sense, it was sort of easy to get things going and just watching them put things together for their own development.
About that hunger: Can you think of a moment where you really saw it in one of the young musicians?
Our very first rehearsal was September 5. It was the day after my birthday, 2015, and we hosted it at the Clark County Library, on Maryland and Flamingo. And right then and there, you could just see how much hunger these students had. We were working on a program that included Elgar, Shostakovich, and Piazzolla, which, for some of them, especially Piazzolla, that was very foreign to them. Astor Piazzolla was not something that they had seen or played. So that very first day, that's when I saw it.
At that performance, 10 years ago, I understand you had 22 students. How has the orchestra changed since then?
Well, October 18, 2015 was our very first outing. We had a sold-out concert, and it was so successful that a week later, on the 23rd of October, we repeated it, and it was also sold out. It was just such an exciting year that the students were constantly raving about it. Their families were very happy with it, and we decided to expand. We wanted to get bigger. Ultimately, I wanted a symphony orchestra which needed winds, brass, percussion, so forth. By the end of the year, we went from having 22 students to 100, so it grew fairly quickly. The students wanted to be a part of that community.
Today we have two orchestras, and it's been like this since our second year. We average between 130 to 145 (students) depending on enrollment and who we accept.
Your family emigrated from Cuba when you were five. Tell me how your upbringing there and your family background influenced your musical career.
Oddly enough, my parents are not musicians at all. My biological father, he's a chemist; my mom was a chemist. I grew up with my stepfather. I consider him my dad, and he was a construction worker. The only musician in my family is my aunt, who is actually a very well-known singer in Cuba. Everyone else in my family, they were mostly in either medicine, law, or science. Just one aunt was a musician. I mean, Cubans love music, so it's not as if I wasn't around music!
I would say that my big love for music happened here in Las Vegas, when I was a student in elementary school. They usually have the middle schools come and recruit — they want to show you the different electives that you could take. And I saw an orchestra play, and I just loved what I heard, and I wanted to be a part of that. Ironically, the teacher that I had now works with me, with YAO.
And why the viola? How did you gravitate toward that instrument?
The story with that is, when I was going to school, I would ride my bike every day. And when we were introduced to all these instruments, you had the violin, the viola, the cello, the bass. I actually gravitated to the cello. I loved the sound of the cello. But here I was thinking, ‘How am I going to take this thing home every day on a bike?’ And the other thing I noticed was that everyone was choosing a violin. The violin continues to be the most popular, right? So I looked at the viola, and I thought, ‘The viola is close enough to the cello. I'll take it!’
Staying on the topic of your time in Toronto: In 2010 the Annex quartet, a chamber music ensemble that you founded in 2006, performed at Carnegie Hall. You were part of that performance, and since then you’ve performed there multiple times. But, what was that first time like?
The first time I was in high school. I (had) joined a group called the National Festival Orchestra. At the time, it was like a national ensemble. … I was principal violist, playing under a conductor named Benjamin Zander, and we played Shostakovich ‘Symphony Number five,’ and I don't remember what else was on the program, but I remember that one because I'm a huge fan of that symphony. But it's an amazing hall, a lot of history, great acoustics. So, I do have fond memories of the hall and, of course, the red chairs — that's never changed!
As a chamber musician, you've collaborated with so many other musicians. What's a memory from that broad range of experiences that really stands out for you, that might help explain why you love collaborating?
When it comes to string quartets, the Annex Quartet is like my baby. It was the group that I created, and my colleagues were all very close friends, and we used to have this residency at the Stratford Festival. The Stratford in Canada is known mostly for doing Shakespearean plays and things like that, but they also have a world class international music festival, and we had a residency there. I think we were there for six summers. Every summer we would go and play.
One summer we were asked if we could do the six Mozart string quartets that (he) wrote as a gift for Joseph Haydn. When we were asked to do it, we were asked, ‘Have you played them?’ And I just said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ We played a lot of quartets, but we actually had never done those. And at the time we were so busy — I think that summer, we had like 16 engagements or something. And so when we get to Stratford, we have to perform these six quartets back-to-back, and each of them were like 45 minutes. So, the way we divided the concerts where we would play two, so we would do about 90 minutes, and then the next day we’d come back and do two. We did them over three days. We split them up. But I have fond memories of that, because I remember we would rehearse, we would then go to the hall, we would play, we would come back, and then we would sleep most of the rest of the afternoon. We would wake up at night, rehearse, go to sleep again, and then repeat the process. And it might sound like a terrible habit to have, but I have such incredible memories of the music that we created together, and just the experience of that one comes to mind. Maybe it's just the time that I spent with my colleagues those summers.
The Dr. Shirley Linzey Young Artists' Orchestra of Las Vegas is holding their 10-year anniversary concert gala on Sunday, April 13, at the Smith Center. Find more information here.
