e mourn the passing away of our beloved Maestro Dr. Santiago Lusardi Girelli – the man, his baton and his music. We loved him. We have been a large, close-knit family of 30 odd members for over seven years with visitors joining in from all parts of the world, to participate and share in the joy of coexistence through his music.
Maestro Santiago or Santi as we fondly called him, was a multifaceted personality. He exuded a positive and infatigable energy, the secret of which lay in his deep passion for the philosophy of music.
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Over the years, steering away from the canon, Santiago exposed us to an eclectic range of choral works, in different languages from Quechua, Sanskrit, Latin ,French, Spanish to German – almost always preferring sacred music, from Karl Jenkins, Gabriel Faure and Ola Gjeilo to Martin Palmeri and music from the Amazon. He gave us the wonderful opportunity to perform Mozart’s Requiem, The Misa Criolla and The Misa Tango, and more recently engaging us in some of his own sublime compositions incorporating Indian texts and instruments. His final masterpiece was the Big Ocean Cantata composed especially for the Dalai Lama’s visit to Goa in December 2019.
Santiago’s vision and foresight enabled him to found the Annual Ketavan Sacred Music Festival in honour of the Georgian Queen Ketevan. The highly acclaimed festival attracted international artistes to perform at spectacular locations in Old Goa. He took the choir beyond our boundaries to perform in Mangaluru, Bengaluru and to the prestigious NCPA and Prithvi Theatres at Mumbai, both solo and jointly with other choirs. Finally, with the pandemic, GUC went virtual.
Like the master craftsman he was, Maestro Santiago had an eye for details – be it in every show, every concert, be it audio, video, composing, conducting, documenting, even to the extent of determining our dress code and the backdrop. He shouldered the entire responsibility to raise our performances up to world class excellence. All he expected of us, his choir was to translate his work into a memorable performance for the audience.
We often wondered whether he ever slept at night, because he would come up with new compositions of music every other day besides doing justice to his family life, which included his wife Dr. Clara Astarloa, poet and former visiting Prof. Latin American Studies GU (an Alto in the choir) and his two children, Inti and Colombina.
He had a very engaging style and a happy demeanor that made all of us look forward to the practice sessions. He conducted his class with professional zeal and injected it with a lot of wit and humour which often served to diffuse awkward moments. Though he could fly off the handle occasionally, it was always a subtle reminder of his high expectations of proficiency, discipline and commitment from his students. Santiago could think on his feet, and was able to turn a bad situation around with uncanny composure.
For instance, when the main Tibetan gong player got accidentally locked out of the Kala Academy auditorium, minutes before our show for the Dalai Lama, it did not upset Santiago. With the typical signal of a raised eyebrow and the nod of his head, the Maestro immediately replaced the missing musician with the nervous cymbalist standing next to him. For the maestro, the show always had to go on.
His network of renowned artistes from across the globe was simply breath-taking. His magnetism seemed to pull people from across the globe to be part of his big projects. Despite his young age, Santiago commanded respect from all irrespective of age or qualification.
He came to Goa under the recommendation of the author, Maria Aurora Couto and went on to experiment with us amateur singers at the GU, honing our individual talents with his policy of “practice makes perfect” to attain world class recognition.
Maestro Santiago never used his baton, but had the ability to conduct with his expressive eyes and body language, and turn a bad dress rehearsal into a spectacular performance the following day!! The connect between Choir and Conductor was organic and magical!
One of Santiago’s remarkable attributes as a teacher and mentor who was a perfectionist himself, was that he was never critical of performance glitches. Every performance ended with a hug or a pat on the back and a “Well done!” from our Maestro always followed by a loving and appreciated Whatsapp message to all members of the choir.
Dr. Santiago Lusardi Girelli’s life was a gift to us. Many great lessons learnt, many values reinforced and a musical legacy of a lifetime ! Muchas Gracias Maestro!
