ITo meet him socially, you would find him to be a mild-mannered person who can chat easily on a variety of subjects. But put him on a podium and at the raising of a finger, he becomes the absolute monarch over 65 individual, conceivably temperamental, artists. Gordon Campbell has taken a small group of dedicated musicians and, by adding and building over the past few years, has created something that is almost unique in Mexico: a first-rate symphony orchestra that can stand up anywhere in this country or abroad for its excellent quality. The director of the soon-to-be renamed Sinaloa Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly the Sinaloa Orchestra of the Arts) modestly recounts how he happened to achieve this mighty goal in less than six years. To begin with, the Ohio-born musician says that growing up near Youngstown, he was not from an especially musical family although “my dad had a good voice and he could carry a tune when he sang.” During his school days he started studying the trumpet but later switched to the French horn. He won an audition to join the University of Young-stown’s orchestra and also played in an award-winning marching band. The director of that band suggested that he might like to conduct, and soon he did. Throughout his college years, Campbell says he conducted the local youth orchestra and a church choir on Sundays. He recalls that during the early days his biggest achievement, at age 19, was conducting Handel’s “Messiah” with the youth orchestra and a choral group combined. “About the time I graduated,” he says, “the Vietnam War was in full swing. I saw an ad in a musicians union trade paper about joining the Peace Corps and ended up, at age 23, playing horn in the symphony orchestra in Asuncion, Paraguay.” Word gets around in serious music circles, and eventually he received an invitation to play first horn in the Mexican National Symphony Orchestra in Mexico City. There he spent the next 10 years, playing in the orchestra and on the side giving

master classes on the French horn throughout Latin America. Then he switched to the University of Mexico’s orchestra where he had chances to conduct. In 1992 he took a year off to go to Israel for study with the associate conductor of that country’s philharmonic orchestra. Returning to Mexico, he accepted an offer to form a symphony orchestra in Aguas-calientes. “We developed a good quality organization and ended up making three records,” he says. In 2000, on the recommendation of Enrique Patron de Rueda (Mazatlan-born conductor of the Bellas Artes opera orchestra in Mexico City), Campbell received a similar offer from Culiacan, and when he decided to move to Sinaloa a core group of 10-12 of his musicians followed. “That’s the hard part,” he explains, “convincing great players to come join you. We have had some success. Our new cellist, who came aboard in January, will be guest soloist with the New York Philharmonic in early May.” Somehow, Campbell has managed to gather 65 talented musicians from “Eastern Europe, the U.S., Mexico — the United Nations,” as he puts it. “I think we’re in good shape right now. Every concert we have played has been packed.” That’s in Culiacan. In Mazatlan, scheduling problems have kept the orchestra from attracting the full houses its local fans say it deserves. One excellent recent concert drew a very small crowd because it was scheduled for the same night as an opera event in the Golden Zone. Another time, the Angela Peralta Theater received only 36 hours’ notice — too short a time to publicize the event. Mazatlan music lovers hold out hopes of hearing much more from this talented orchestra. While it is home-based in Culiacan, it is state-sponsored and supposed to be available for concerts throughout Sinaloa. As the state’s only major tourist destination and the only beach resort in Mexico with a historic opera house to serve as a concert hall, Mazatlan ought to rate more than a token share of quality music from this exceptional orchestra. jackie@pacificpearl.com