By the end of August, 26 members of the community gathered and held votes for the new Music and Culture committees.

The music committee will be headed up by Gerardo Brenes, who began the evening’s proceedings with a description of an upcoming project, a free music education program for youth and children. “This new program will be used to promote musical appreciation for our youth and children,” said Brenes. “The idea comes from Venezuela originally, and will give children the opportunity to use and practice with instruments that they want to practice.” Making sweet music won’t be an easy task, though. The development of the program, however, hinges not just on community donations, participation, and volunteerism, but on all levels of Costa Rican government. “We have to approach the Municipality of Nicoya, the National System of Musical Education, and also the Ministry of Culture in order to secure funds for instruments, teachers and teaching space,” explained Brenes. “Because it’s not just about instruments,” he said. “We need transportation of teachers from Nicoya and a space to hold the classes, so we’ll need to pay for all that.		The Music Committee poses for a photograph after voting at the meeting.
		Newly-elected members of the Culture Committee.

For just 60 instruments to start with, we’ll need around 20 million colones or 40,000 dollars. Eventually, we are hoping to have between 200-250 students.”

The committee is also hoping to have a building to hold these classes, eventually. For now, they’ve received offers from the Nosara Development Association and the Del Mar Academy for the use of their respective spaces to hold classes.

The plan is to secure donations and make instruments and instructors available to children and youth of Nosara and it’s surrounding towns by February 2013. The program has already been put to use in San Jose, and has recently spread to the region’s major centre, Nicoya.

Brenes pointed to the presence of American Shawn Moore at the meeting, a masters student of musical performance at Yale. Moore, a seasoned musician and quartet member, practiced his trade in San Juan de Colon, Venezuela, where he taught 200 students how to use, appreciate, and become proficient in musical instruments.

Moore will be returning to Nosara in early January to hold masterclasses for students of Sistema Nacional de Educacion Musical (SINEM), Costa Rica’s national music school system, as well as a masterclass in Nosara for SINEM students who live here.

“I'll be coming down in January with a string quartet,” said Moore. “We will play several concerts in the area to give people an idea about what chamber music is and, hopefully turn more kids onto music as an area of interest.”

If you want to help out, please contact Music Committee president Gerardo Brenes at 8824-1313 or vice-president Silvia Hernandez at 8428-6177

Music committee:
Prez - Gerardo Brenes
VP - Silvia Hernandez
Secretary - Seidy Ugalde
Tresurer - Silvia Brinsky
Speaker - Paul Vargas
2nd Speaker - Rocio Navarrete
“Fiscal" - Patrick Canton

Culture committee:
Prez - Martin Chacon
VP - Marco Johaning
Secretary - Karina Rosales
Treasurer - Marita Lopez
Speaker - Regina Amacker
2nd Speaker - Debra Brackman
"Fiscal" - Silvia Hernandez