Enrique Márquez

The views and opinions expressed by speakers and presenters in connection with Art Restart are their own, and not an endorsement by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and the UNC School of the Arts. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In June of 2021, Enrique Márquez arrived on the campus of the renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, MI as its new Director of Music. Founded in 1928, Interlochen offers students from grades 3 through 12 a wealth of arts-education opportunities through several programs, including its boarding school, the Arts Academy, and its Summer Arts Camp.

Before becoming an admired arts administrator and educator, Enrique was a professional violist who made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2005. He served as principal viola of The Orchestra of the Americas and the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra, performing in over 25 countries in the Americas, Asia and Europe with such conducting giants Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Gustavo Dudamel and Valery Gergiev.  

In his native Mexico, Enrique went on to become the youngest Director General of the Veracruz Cultural Institute. He also founded the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, which quickly became treasured not only for its performances but also for its impact in the community as a cultural and educational hub. He also earned a Master’s in Cultural Policy and Management from City University London and a master’s in education at Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

In this interview with Pier Carlo Talenti, Enrique describes how a fundamental belief in music’s power to draw out every young person’s most vibrant qualities has determined his career path.

Choose a question below to begin exploring the interview:

• Could you describe what the Director of Music does at Interlochen and what you in particular hope to bring to the position?
• How do you prepare [students] to be in the world as performing artists in this 21st century?
• Going back to when you yourself were training to become a violist, very early on in your career you also started taking on leadership roles and a lot of social service work. How did that focus develop? Who told you about those possibilities?
• What project up to this point are you proudest of? Where do you think you’ve had the greatest impact up to now?
• If you could go back and give yourself a couple of tutorials on how to do it, what would’ve been most helpful for you to know at the time about founding an orchestra from the ground up?
• What have you learned about wealth and accessibility and the arts as you travel back and forth between these different worlds?
• Do you still find time to perform? How’s your performing career going? Balancing the leadership, teaching and performing, how’s that working?
• Do you have a sense of how you’d like to be challenged in the future as a leader?

Pier Carlo: Could you describe what the Director of Music does at Interlochen and what you in particular hope to bring to the position?

Enrique: Yes, absolutely. I’m an Interlochen alum, as you know. I attended the Interlochen Arts Camp in ’96, ’97 and ’98, and I attended the Academy from ’96 to ’98. I was here as a student. I never thought I would be the Director of Music. It’s such an honor to be here, sitting where I am, working with my peers. Some faculty members are still here from when I was a student, so it is great honor to work with them from this capacity.

What I do is I work mostly with the faculty, the administration, the students. Everything we create, we launch, we work on, it’s always with the students in mind. What is best for our students? How are we preparing them to be part of a world full of potential? Technology is taking us places we have never dreamed of going. We may be going to Mars before the next two decades; the internet is just uniting us in ways that were unthinkable before. So we always think, how can we with our curriculum bring our students to a place where they can thrive, they can be successful and they can be — I think the most important is — happy? How can they be happy, fulfilled human beings, adults?

Interlochen has The Interlochen 5, which are our five key capacities. They are mindfulness and resilience, creative capacity, interdisciplinary perspective and collaboration, global and cultural perspective, and community and citizen artistry. These are our or guideposts at Interlochen. This was a long process, a very thoughtful one in which we are of course striving to have wonderful concerts, very refined performances. 

However, students really go in-depth in their craft. We have them collaborate with our divisions, we do a lot of musical theater, we do ballets, the composers work with the writers. It’s a place where we have several disciplines. We have music, we have film, we have theater, visual arts, creative writing, interdisciplinary arts. It’s a unique place where high school students are engaging with Pirandello, with the latest singer-songwriter songs, with Beethoven Five, with the Marsalis Tuba Concerto. It’s just a place that I think is unlike any other.

As the Director of Music, I lead Interlochen’s largest division. We have classical music, we have contemporary music, singer-songwriter, and music production and engineering. As a student here you can learn how to create a podcast; you can take woodwind quintet; you can take a class on jazz improvisation. The beauty of this place also is, if you come here as a student, you can be part of many ensembles. Many students play in the orchestra and in the jazz combo. They’re doing all these kinds of things. The students often interact among our disciplines within music. It’s really a great place to be. 

I get the honor to lead this division, to work alongside our administration. We are looking ahead to be able to really prepare our students to be successful in the way of fulfillment, happiness, joy, and how they can be creative change-makers going forward in this world that is full of potential and a bit of uncertainty with what we know is happening with climate, with many things that are very worrying for society. We want them to be able to be conscious of what’s happening and how they can really contribute through the arts or whatever they do later.

Many of our students end up being leaders in other fields, which is absolutely great. We’re very proud of them. But I think the common denominator is a passion for the arts, a passion for being here. Our faculty is extremely devoted. Many of them have been here for decades, so they really know how to work with our students. We have a very broad international student body. Music is about 20% international students, so that gives another perspective to the way our students interact with each other to get to know people from all over the U.S., from all over the world, which is also kind of beautiful.

Pier Carlo: Among your students, you must have a few or several who have expressed interest in making art or performance their career. What do you tell them, or how do you guide them? How do you prepare them to be in the world as performing artists in this 21st century?

I think there’s no better time to be a performer, but what we’re also trying to share with the students is that there are many routes they can take. ... So they can really affect music, effect change through what they’re passionate about, which in this case is music.

Enrique: Great question. I think there’s no better time to be a performer, but what we’re also trying to share with the students is that there are many routes they can take. They can be a performer; they can play in a symphony orchestra; they can play in a new-music ensemble; they can be a musicologist; they can be a professor; they can be an administrator, a leader. I see the arts and music as an ecosystem in which all elements are in a way equally important. So they can really affect music, effect change through what they’re passionate about, which in this case is music. 

There are some students that I see, “Well, this student is always early for rehearsal, helping out, setting the music, trying to be supportive of the staff. They can be an arts administrator because they have the chops. They have the attitude of service, of being there.” Other students are very thoughtful, very engaged with literature. They have these incredible discussions. Well, maybe this student can go more into an intellectual field or be a musicologist or somebody who does research and expands our field. 

Pier Carlo: Going back to when you yourself were training to become a violist, very early on in your career you also started taking on leadership roles and a lot of social service work. How did that focus develop? Who told you about those possibilities?

Enrique: I come from a family of educators, so those are, I think, people of service, in a way. They’re there to support others, to work towards others. So I had that at home. I’ve been given so many opportunities in my life through scholarships, through grants, through the support of mentors. I’ve been really truly blessed. 

At a turning point in my life, I said, “I want to give back. I want to now create for others so that they have what I had, others who maybe didn’t have my upbringing as a middle-class person from a family that was in the arts.” I just see there is no better way to spend youth than be part of music education, be part of a program. I just want to give back. I think I have some leadership qualities. I was always organizing things in my school tournaments or conferences or this or the other, so in a way I always had that curiosity. I’m an avid reader. Coming to Interlochen, I attended many plays, the ballets, art exhibits, so I became in a way a cultural citizen. I was embracing other art forms.

Pier Carlo: How young were you the first year you were at Interlochen?

Enrique: I was 15. I didn’t know anybody in the U.S.

Pier Carlo: Wow.

Enrique: I know!

Pier Carlo: How was your English at the time? Were you fluent?

Enrique: It was OK. I tested into English one. I mean, not as it is now. What I did, I told my friends, “Please correct me all the time. No matter how small it is, please correct me.” I’m grateful that they were patient enough with me. 

But also reading here, I took English classes where I read Kurt Vonnegut; I read all these great American writers. I read even some Shakespeare. I got into reading quite a bit, and I think that helped my speaking abilities. I still make mistakes, of course, but it’s a language that I love, and I’ve been living here for a very long time, so I’ve embraced the culture and the way things are here, which is wonderful. I think there is no country like this.

Pier Carlo: This is maybe an unfair question to ask, but your resume is so impressive, especially in terms of the many ways you’ve given back. What project up to this point are you proudest of? Where do you think you’ve had the greatest impact up to now?

Enrique: I think the greatest impact I’ve had so far is to further the arts through a number of ways. My proudest achievement, I think, is right now being at Interlochen. I never thought I would be here, so this is truly a blessing and I’m so grateful for this. 

But in my past experiences where I’ve been for a bit more time, I founded an orchestra in Mexico, which was incredibly meaningful. I never thought I would have the chance to launch an orchestra from scratch. It is incredibly difficult, but we were able to create jobs for 70 musicians, staff members. We were able to have an orchestra for a community that did not have an orchestra before, so that meant deciding which administrative positions to have, hiring for those, auditioning all the musicians.

Pier Carlo: How old were you when this happened?

Enrique: I was 33.

Pier Carlo: Wow. If you could go back and give yourself a couple of tutorials on how to do it, what would’ve been most helpful for you to know at the time about founding an orchestra from the ground up?

Enrique: [Laughing] I would say that ignorance is bliss.

Pier Carlo: I’ve heard that a lot on this podcast, actually. [Laughing] If people had known, they would’ve never done it.

Enrique: It’s just so difficult, but that’s part of the beauty of being curious and thinking, “What a great idea, let’s do it!” I just loved that opportunity. 

I was working in Boston. I could have stayed there, but I met the mayor of this city. He mentioned the idea to have an orchestra, so I said, “Well, this is wonderful. Let’s do it!”

Pier Carlo: And what city is this?

Enrique: This is Boca del RÍo on Mexico’s Gulf coast, right where the conquistadors arrived 500 years ago. Hernán Cortés. You can still see his house there. It’s the continent’s oldest municipality. There’s a lot of history. It was the gateway of Europe and the Middle East to Mexico and to the Americas in a way. It has a wonderful history full of ups and downs.

I launched this orchestra. I thought a lot about, “We’re launching an orchestra; we cannot do the same thing everybody’s doing. How do we have an orchestra for the 21st century?”

Pier Carlo: Especially in the city where the colonists first landed, you don’t want to just do European music, right? You’ve got extra pressure there to do something different.

Enrique: Absolutely. I love European music, but there is so much great music around. My view was that a performing artist today needs to be able to perform more than one genre. So we had Mexican music. We had of course some world premieres. We commissioned new works. We of course played the great European masterworks. We had some children’s concerts. We had movie music concerts. So that was one part of it.

The other part was half the orchestra played in chamber-music ensembles in the city center, in shopping centers, in old folks homes, in hospitals, so that we were going out into the community. People didn’t have to come to the concert hall on Friday to hear the orchestra. We established a rapport with the community and a sense that we are all one. We’re a community in this city.

The third aspect for me, the most important, was the music-education aspect. We had a program called Orquestando ArmonÍa, orchestrating harmony, for 350 children after school — three hours every day, orchestra and choir — that the musicians from the orchestra also taught. So the orchestra always had two main responsibilities: the orchestra and either chamber music or music education. I think we created an ecosystem that was in a way self-feeding, because the children in the kids’ orchestra are now probably 20, 21, the oldest ones. Some are already now in music school, trying to be musicians. So we created in a way a long-term audience development. 

There are people for whom the orchestra became their thing to do on Friday. They became friends. What we also did is we created a cultural center for the orchestra, which we thought a lot about. We thought, “We want to have a cultural center that is open all day.” They have a restaurant, they have a bookshop, they have some little shops, and there are three stages. You can have a movie going on at the same time as a jazz recital, as an orchestra concert. So it’s a place where people can go.

Often, as you know, cultural centers are beautiful, but they open three times a week for two hours each night and they’re closed the rest of the time. We wanted a place that was thriving and that was able to bring communities together that found a common love for the arts. The arts, meaning all kinds.

Pier Carlo: And the orchestra is still thriving? 

Enrique: It is, yes. It’s still thriving.

Pier Carlo: It must have been hard to leave.

Enrique: It was hard to leave, yes. But I think that’s also part of being a leader. In Harvard they call it the bus test, that if a bus runs you over, the organization keeps going. I launched that program with the help of many people, I left and it’s still thriving. In a humble way I think it was done well and it was done in a meaningful manner so that no matter who is there it belongs to the community and it’s still going.

Then I went to work at Harvard University, and then I came to Interlochen. But yeah, it was a wonderful achievement just to go back home and create such a meaningful orchestra that we hope stays for a long time. It will. And that people have that, the joy of going to a concert and young people getting to learn an instrument.

The goal was not to create musicians. ... we wanted them to have a sense of citizenship, a sense of belonging, a sense of pride, of being in the spotlight, to be able to work hard towards something, an achievement.

The goal was not to create musicians. Yeah, excellence was the bottom line, but we wanted them to have a sense of citizenship, a sense of belonging, a sense of pride, of being in the spotlight, to be able to work hard towards something, an achievement. I think that’s also something that I like to talk about, how the arts are such a democratic discipline. You need to invest your time.

Pier Carlo: Well, if you have access to them.

Enrique: Absolutely.

Pier Carlo: You need to have an organization like yours that opens the doors, right?

Enrique: You’re absolutely right. Access and choices. Access and options are the most important. Interlochen will be doing similar work and hopefully better than what I did, and students will look at their training here as a place where they learned that they can trust themselves and that they can take on projects that seem completely unreachable.

Pier Carlo: I want to talk a little bit about money and wealth. You brought music to and you worked with under-resourced communities throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Haiti and the Dominican Republic among them. And Venezuela, was it?

Enrique: Yeah, Haiti, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Mexico.

Pier Carlo: And yet you’ve also worked at Harvard, you’ve worked at Interlochen, both institutions that are not poor, let’s say. This is such a general question that I apologize in advance, but what have you learned about wealth and accessibility and the arts as you travel back and forth between these different worlds?

Enrique: I’ll give you an example. The first time I heard the Berlin Philharmonic was, I think, 1999. I was in the World Orchestra in Berlin on tour so we went to a dress rehearsal for their New Year’s concert. I just could not believe it. Such outstanding work, I started literally crying. I could not believe my ears on how powerful, what the extent of expression of commitment, of just the joy that was coming out of the stage. So I thought, “This is the golden standard. This is excellence. Nothing beats that.” And for a long time, that was the bar.

Then I went to Haiti, and I started working with young musicians who were sharing one cello among five young musicians rehearsing in the middle ... not in the middle of the street but in a place where you could hear the cars. There were mosquitoes. It’s hot, it’s humid, there’s a lot of noise. People rehearsing in the corner of each room. This is after the earthquake in Haiti.

We did Brandenburg Six over there, among other pieces. To me, that was far more excellent than the Berlin Philharmonic because there is so much against. Everything is against you: the climate, the resources, the instruments. It’s really difficult. But I thought these students are giving so much that we had a very good performance of Brandenburg Six.

Also I was in Venezuela in the very remote area of Canaima, where you can only get there in an airplane. There are no roads to get there. Doing Barber Adagio, for example. I thought, “Well, this is amazing. We’re doing Barber Adagio in the middle of these amazing tepui mountains!”

What I see is that devotion, work, commitment is the same, no matter where, no matter if it’s a place like Harvard or Interlochen or Haiti or Venezuela.

What I see is that devotion, work, commitment is the same, no matter where, no matter if it’s a place like Harvard or Interlochen or Haiti or Venezuela. The thing is, as you said, access is key. It’s far more difficult to transcend social or economic barriers in Latin America than in the U.S. In this country, you can still work hard, and there are ways to achieve a better career or whatever dream you have. That is the great difference.

Now, there are always scholarships for students to come here. I think it’s in a way very similar, what I’ve experienced at elite programs and what I’ve experienced in programs that are also well thought of but have so many things against them. It’s a matter of perspective.

Pier Carlo: Do you still find time to perform? How’s your performing career going? Balancing the leadership, teaching and performing, how’s that working?

Enrique: I perform very, very little. I used to play one concert a year in Carnegie Hall with some friends. That was my one performance a year. So it’s great in a way because when I play, I love it, and when I don’t, I don’t miss it. It’s like the best of both worlds. I had a recital with the faculty this summer. We played the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth. That was a great joy to play with colleagues here in Interlochen.

I think I am more useful to music through my role as a leader at Interlochen as an administrator, as a person who is engaging with so many art forms. ... it’s not that I was giving something up or that I couldn’t make it; it’s that I found a better way to serve music.

But I don’t think this is a sacrifice. I think it’s just, how can I best serve? I learned this from Clive Gillinson at Carnegie Hall. I met him a few times, and he always said, “Carnegie Hall will always think about how Carnegie Hall can best serve music through our decisions.” I thought, “That is a wonderful way to approach leadership.” I always think, “In my own way, how can I best serve music?” Yeah, I’m a good violist, but there are others who are far better than I am, who can play in a symphony or an opera house. I think I am more useful to music through my role as a leader at Interlochen as an administrator, as a person who is engaging with so many art forms. I can make and thrive in music that way and make music better for many others in this capacity than I can as a violist, because others can do so it much better than I can.

That was a difficult decision to make. I was in New York City when I made that decision. I was an intern at Lincoln Center. It was my first administrative job. I was learning the ropes there, and I really loved it. I thought, “This is really great. I think I’m good at this. I’m really enjoying it.” But I had to make a choice to really focus on that career path. I thought, “Well, my friends are going to think I’m a failure, that I didn’t make it, that I’m lesser.” And that was just in my head because my friends are still my friends. Most of my friends are musicians so I’m very, very much involved in the cultural sector. But I had to get that across in my head, that it’s not that I was giving something up or that I couldn’t make it; it’s that I found a better way to serve music.

Pier Carlo: Do you have a sense of how you’d like to be challenged in the future as a leader?

Enrique: Not how. But I want to keep being challenged every day because I think that really builds character and it allows us to grow as human beings, as leaders, as, hopefully, the thoughtful, caring people that we are. I’m always grateful for a challenge, like how can we make this program really thrive, or how can we get our minds together and do it? I take it a day at a time. I love my work here. I’m here. I hope to continue a career in the arts in this country or elsewhere. I think that it’s just in a way great to be able to do what I do, and I just hope to always be able to serve music in the best way I can.

And culture and the arts. I love reading; that’s a passion of mine. I’m taking more care of what I eat, how I exercise. I’m trying to be mindful of that. I’ve made some great friends here, colleagues in the faculty and the staff. It’s a good place to be. Education is a very novel career. You really get to be there for others and create for others, and it’s self-fulfilling to me.

I always like to get to know new music, a new composer, a new work, of all kinds of music. I’m now learning about popular music quite a bit, which is so wonderful. Yeah, it’s just expanding, or in a way, being less ignorant every day.

Pier Carlo: That’s a good mission, to be less ignorant every day! I really like that. That’s wonderful.

Enrique: Well, the Japanese say you should aim to be 1% better every day than yesterday. If you do that, you would be 300% better every year. So the thing is, those small increments add up. I love swimming, for example, so I try to swim four times a week. You see the changes in weeks or months. Or reading in the morning or at night. Having a coffee with a friend. It’s just a nice way to grow. 

As life goes on, the perspective changes and priorities change, so I try to be ahead of the curve, ahead of the game, if I can. But then again, I think every day is an opportunity to be of service and to be around great people.