The incredible tools of Catalina Vicens

Take a couple in their twenties or so. They are Chilean, in love, ready to commit themselves to a better future. He is a recent graduate in Political Science, a very young government official at the Ministry for Economic Development. She is a graphic designer and activist of the Women’s Union. When on 11 September 1973 a coup d’état overthrows the Allende presidency, establishing the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, the most important Chilean newspaper within a few hours, El Mercurio, publishes the black list of opponents of the regime. The names of Paulina and Andrés they are there, in black and white. Time to throw a bundle of clothes, two pans and a portable television on the seats of the Due Cavalli. The boys run away. They go up the entire Andean mountain range up to Quito, Equador, five thousand km further north, to escape the dictator’s thugs. They will return to Santiago a few years later, when the dictatorship begins to fall apart (it will fall in 1989), and in Santiago it will be born Catalina, today director of the Museum of San Colombano in Bolognaone of the most prestigious collections in the world of ancient tools. That Catalina revives by playing them all or almost all, a concert artist of international prestige called from one continent to another to play harpsichords, spinets and fortepianos.

Thirty-eight, naughty face and eyes that swallow life at every glance, Catalina Vicens it is a torrent of energy. The Bolognese appointment is only dated last autumn, but the casual and adolescent attitude with which she lives in the city everyday life makes her seem like one of the many students who swarm under the arcades around the University. She was inserted one hundred percent also because of the fluent Italian, refined thanks to her stay in Bologna, but long overheard when she was little, thanks to opera music.

A reserved child, Catalina. And who would ever say, seeing her today, inspired and radiant. “Reserved, just like that. I was with my thoughts, I wrote poems, they had to force me to play with the other children. Even today I strongly feel the need to keep some space and time for myself, alone. I lived my childhood in a suspended time, the true story of my family and my country I discovered much later. I knew that my parents had previously lived in Ecuador and that my brothers were born there. I also knew that the German Jewish grandmother and the Catalan grandfather were both exiles. But when I was a child we simply didn’t talk about certain things. A delivery of the silence that was breathed in the air. I remember that my classmate had the photo of Pinochet as a computer screensaver … Even after the end of the dictatorship, every word was weighed, there were two halves of the population to put back together, it was a formative and delicate period ” .

But before learning the history, Catalina learns to love music. In fact, in addition to working as an interior designer, mother Paulina sings in the choir of the Teatro Municipal in Santiago. She is gifted enough to be part of it without ever having studied music. But listening to the arias of Tosca and La Traviata is not the real reason that pushes her to learn the piano. «My best friend was taking lessons, she had decided that when she grew up she would be a pianist. And I wanted to do what she did (instead she became a famous playwright, ed). I was seven years old and my parents didn’t believe much in my concert vocation: however they let me go to class and bought a Casio keyboard so I could practice at home. They bought me the piano a few years later, when they realized that mine was a real passion. I walked out of school and ran home to put on Bethoven, Dvorak records, I immersed myself in classical music with an all-encompassing enthusiasm. I also took kung-fu lessons. Sounds strange, huh? I like it so much, I have never stopped practicing it. In life, everything I do, I do one hundred percent ».

But music is more powerful than martial arts, and Catalina signs up for the Santiago Conservatory, with the aim of becoming a composer. But … «But I was very strong in scientific subjects and I discovered a passion for medicine. And within medicine, neurosurgery. I liked the idea of ​​investigating, understanding, repairing that extraordinary mechanism that is our brain. Basically, I thought, one thing does not exclude the other ».

Deciding to take the test for enrollment in Medicine is a matter of seconds. In the days of limbo preceding the publication of the results, her piano teacher telephones her, announcing that in a few days a professor from the Curtis & Julior School of Music in New York would be arriving in Santiago to scout. «He asks me, Do you want to participate in the audition? You like Bach, and they are looking for harpsichord students. The scholarship covers all expenses, in my opinion you would do well to try. I thought, why not? I introduced myself, I played, they chose me. I said to myself: I’ll go, if I don’t like it I’ll go back. The family has given me the freedom to choose without the fear of failure. A good fortune ».