He had apprenticed with legendary German conductor Kurt Masur and conducted youth orchestras in Chicago.
Then, almost on a lark, David Handel, an American violinist, came to La Paz, the isolated capital of Bolivia, in the centre of South America — a city 12,000 feet above sea level, seemingly stuck in a time warp and, with its enormous indigenous majority, not exactly a hotbed for Bach and Stravinsky.
As Handel remembers his arrival in 1997, the National Symphony Orchestra he was hired to remake was a shambles — it had no concert hall, generated little public interest and was barely able to muster seven or eight sparsely attended concerts a year and pay its musicians a few dollars for each performance.
It could have been, Handel recalled, a calamitous career move. Instead, it has become his life's work, moulding a ragtag group of musicians into a highly competent orchestra.
Handel, then 33, saw it as a unique, if unconventional, opportunity. “My aim was to conduct an orchestra and make a big social impact,'' he said.
Spreading ‘love' all over
Indeed, Handel could teach, experiment and build from the ground up, and in the process, bring the music he loves to barren and forgotten corners of a country that some dismissed as a wasteland for high culture.
Handel began by taking the orchestra on tour, the first stop being El Alto, considered Latin America's most indigenous city.
“When we started out, the orchestra's public was tiny; the orchestra itself was tiny,'' said Handel, now 44. “The idea was, if it's the National Symphony, it ought to represent everyone in the country and it's a country that is demographically diverse.''
The orchestra's eclectic group of musicians — some of them teachers, some part-time mariachis and a handful of them university students — travelled across the high plains to Oruro, a mining town where nearly everyone is Aymara Indian.
They also played in Bolivia's lush Amazonian lowlands and in resource-rich Tarija in the south, regions with a rich musical tradition.
But it was folkloric music, heavy on windpipes and melancholic lyrics. While some in La Paz advised Handel to “Bolivianise'' the orchestra, he said it was vital to stick to what orchestras do — play masterworks — while building a repertoire that includes Bolivian composers.
“The point was that you don't talk down to your public; you speak to your public, you express to your public on the same level,'' he said. Recalling his first concert in El Alto, Handel said: “It was completely European and people loved it.''
With a shaven head and piercing blue eyes, Handel, who had trained with Masur at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, could not on the surface seem more out of place in the South American country of 9 million.
But in his trips throughout Latin America — Handel has been guest conductor for 40 orchestras in many countries — he has learnt to speak nearly flawless Spanish.
Most importantly, he has become an expert in Bolivian music, easily pointing out the finer points of Bolivian composer Alberto Villalpando, the love songs of Enriqueta Ulloa or the protest songs of Luis Rico.
But the one-time budding violinist from Buffalo is obsessed with the majesty of classical music. And he wants to share it.
Jaime Bravo, who plays first flute and has been in the orchestra for 30 years, said playing had become just another job, offering little hope for improvement.
“Before, we were limited to works that were very small and repetitive,'' he said. “For a lot of time, we did Bolivian music prepared for the orchestra.''
Now, Bravo said, the orchestra takes on works by such composers as Dvorak and Debussy. “Every programme we do is a challenge,'' Bravo said. "The repertoire is inspiring.''
The public has, to be sure, responded. Where the symphony once played ten concerts in a good year, attracting 2,000 people, it now offers nearly 50 performances attended by 25,000 people.
With a new performance space and busy schedule, members of the orchestra are being pushed to new limits. The orchestra now has 70 musicians.
The financial situation is still too precarious for many of them to make the symphony their full-time job but salaries have doubled in recent years.
Valery Patino, 18, interning with the symphony, said she has been pressed like never before. Playing for Handel means showing up on time and rehearsing late into the night.
“This is another level,'' she said after a rehearsal. “He is very demanding but that makes us practise even more.''
Handel said there is no reason the orchestra should not reach for the highest levels. In the future, that could mean tours abroad and fellowships for musicians with some of the world's great orchestras.
“The idea, with people who are not strong in certain positions, is to work with them, to make them part of the team,'' he said. “Every conductor aspires to conduct the greatest symphony he can.''
