<\/p>\n
Paul Montalvo, president and CEO of the Orchestra San Antonio, resisted practicing the piano as a child. Classical music didn’t do much for him. Years later, he developed a passion for it.<\/p>\n
Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
On the last Friday in March, the lobby of the\u00a0Tobin Center for the Performing Arts<\/a> was packed with people eager to spend an evening listening to\u00a0the Orchestra San Antonio.<\/a><\/p>\n As might be expected, many were older, classical music buffs who likely developed a taste for Shostakovich and Beethoven in their youth. But there were 20- and 30-somethings in the mix, too, as well as a few families. Music lovers crowded into the\u00a0Feik Family Rotunda for a lively pre-concert discussion with Music Director Leonardo Pineda,<\/a> composer Daniel Freiberg<\/a> and trumpeter Pacho Flores<\/a> about the music they were going to present.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Paul\u00a0Montalvo, who co-founded the classical music nonprofit and serves as its president and CEO, was in the lobby, warmly greeting people.<\/p>\n When the concert began, the\u00a0H-E-B Performance Hall was nearly full. The audience responded enthusiastically to the music, played by a diverse ensemble of musicians, most at the start of their careers.<\/p>\n Evenings like that are important to\u00a0Montalvo, a retired firefighter and lifelong metalhead who developed a passion for classical music in his 20s. But he wants to do more than stage concerts. He sees classical music as a force for change. And that\u2019s why educational programming is central to everything Orchestra San Antonio does. The aim is to show youngsters a world of possibilities they might not otherwise see.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cOur north star is to give opportunity at the highest level where there is no opportunity,\u201d Montalvo said. \u201cThat is my mission until I\u2019m done with this earth. There isn\u2019t a more beautiful way to do it than through music.\u201d<\/p>\n The path to classical music<\/p>\n Montalvo, 54, got his first taste of music education when he was 7 and his parents signed him up for piano lessons.<\/p>\n MORE CLASSICAL MUSIC: Youth Orchestras of San Antonio is losing its longtime music director<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI think they realized, even though they didn\u2019t have backgrounds in music, they realized the importance of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Montalvo did not. He wanted to be outside with his friends, and getting him to practice was always a fight. So, when he was about 11, his parents let him quit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Freed from his lessons, he focused on soccer and basketball. He took up tennis in the eighth grade, but an arm injury forced him to give it up.\u00a0After he graduated from Lee High School, he went to the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he felt adrift.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t really take to anything,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI was bored. I took accounting, electrical engineering, whatever. Nothing stuck. It wasn\u2019t that I was bad at it. I just didn\u2019t really care.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n His father, a physicist who worked for the Southwest Research Institute<\/a> for 43 years, had been footing the bill for all those classes and decided he was done. So\u00a0Montalvo left school and went to work, first in restaurants and then with Security Service Federal Credit Union.<\/p>\n His older brother was a firefighter and suggested that he give that a try. He did, joining the San Antonio Fire Department in 1995.<\/p>\n About a year later, something clicked with classical music in a way he can\u2019t quite explain. Maybe a seed was planted in those piano lessons he didn\u2019t like as a kid. He had always been a heavy metal fan (he still listens to\u00a0Metallica and Iron Maiden). But he started exploring classical music in a big way. He began collecting CDs and eventually amassed more than 12,000.<\/p>\n Listening to the music wasn’t enough. He wanted to make it, too. He bought a piano, and he went back to school at UTSA at 26 in hopes of becoming a conductor.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n He majored in music composition with a minor in conducting. He often pulled double shifts on weekends at the fire station to make his work and class schedules jibe.<\/p>\n \u201cI was working full time and also taking 21 hours a semester, and that was tough,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I could do it now.\u201d<\/p>\n Eugene Dowdy, who led the university\u2019s orchestral studies and instrumental conducting programs at the time, recalled\u00a0Montalvo as something of a perfectionist.<\/p>\n \u201cHe does not like messing around,\u201d said Dowdy, who retired from\u00a0UTSA and now teaches at Schreiner University in Kerrville. \u201cI remember telling him, \u2018OK, you\u2019re going to want to get an ensemble, you\u2019re going to conduct it,\u2019 because I wanted him to have real world experience.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “And I remember, even back then as an undergrad, he was like, \u2018Well, are our students good enough players?\u2019 And I\u2019m like, dude! I think you\u2019re skipping a step!\u201d<\/p>\n Montalvo was 30 when he\u00a0earned his degree.\u00a0\u201cI wanted to be a conductor still,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI didn\u2019t have the chops, and it was so late. So I was kind of in limbo for a few years.\u201d<\/p>\n Creating an orchestra<\/p>\n In 2008, he was talking to some fellow classical music lovers about San Antonio’s live music scene.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a professional chamber orchestra, so we said, ‘Let\u2019s put some repertoire out there that\u2019s not heard so often, have a nice group, come up with an education program later,’ ” he said. \u201cSo we did that.\u201d<\/p>\n Montalvo read up on fundraising and applied what he learned, networking at every opportunity. The Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio debuted in the fall of 2012.<\/p>\n It was one of the original resident companies at the Tobin Center, along with the San Antonio Symphony, Opera San Antonio<\/a> and Ballet San Antonio.<\/a> It was re-branded the Classical Music Institute in 2017, a change that reflected the organization’s commitment to education.<\/p>\n By 2020, Montalvo started to think about other pursuits. The following year, he retired from the fire department and began reducing his role with the Classical Music Institute.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Then the San Antonio Symphony folded. Classical music boosters worried the city was looking at a future with no professional orchestra. In addition to silencing the symphony, the collapse had the potential to hurt the opera and ballet, which relied on symphony musicians for many of their productions.<\/p>\n FLASHBACK: San Antonio Symphony board pulls the plug on 83-year-old orchestra<\/a><\/p>\n There were concerns the ripple effects would reach well beyond the\u00a0Tobin Center, making the city less appealing to people and businesses weighing a move here.<\/p>\n Donors step up<\/p>\n Montalvo, who was still planning to hand over leadership of the Classical Music Institute, thought the organization could help by accelerating its plan to add an orchestra to its offerings. He came up with a $560,000 proposal to put musicians in the pit for ballet and the opera performances. Those groups wouldn\u2019t have to pay a penny.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n He shared the plan with a couple of donors in hopes of securing their financial support.<\/p>\n \u201cThey said, \u2018We\u2019ll only do that if you come back and work full time,\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cAnd then they each wrote a $50,000 check. And that started us on this road.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when we went from being a $310,000 organization in \u201922 to $1.6 million in fiscal year \u201923. \u00a0Looking back on it, it\u2019s kind of surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul Montalvo, president and CEO of the Orchestra San Antonio, resisted practicing the piano as a child. Classical music didn’t do much for him. Years later, he developed a passion for it.<\/p>\n Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n Another key source of support was Bexar County, which gave the organization $300,000 to get the orchestra started.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI want to make sure a symphony survives,\u201d said former\u00a0Bexar County Judge Nelson\u00a0Wolff, who was honored for his support at an Orchestra San Antonio\u00a0gala last fall. \u201cIt\u2019s really, really important for the community. Thank goodness he stepped up, because we had to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n Wolff also liked that Montalvo wanted to create an ensemble that reflected the ethnic diversity of the city.<\/p>\n The newly formed\u00a0CMI Orchestra initially played solely with the ballet and the opera. It gave its first standalone concert as the Orchestra San Antonio before a sold-out house in April 2025, followed by a three-concert 2025-\u201926 season, which wrapped up June 9.<\/p>\n The entire organization \u2013 including chamber music and symphony orchestras and the education program \u2013 is now known as the Orchestra San Antonio.\u00a0It is slated to announce its 2026-\u201927 season in mid-August.\u00a0Frost Bank is the headline sponsor for the concert series, an arrangement that will run through the 2029-30 season.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n MORE LIVE CLASSICAL: Yo-Yo Ma headed to San Antonio this fall<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cOn the artistic side, they had really stood in the gap as what I call the symphonic resource of our community,\u201d \u00a0said Phil Green, chairman and CEO of Frost Bank, who also is a musician. \u201cBut I think the thing that really caught our attention and really drew our commitment was the way they approach music education for young people in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Green said he was particularly taken with Ascend, Orchestra San Antonio\u2019s free after-school strings program. It models its approach on\u00a0El Sistema,<\/a> the famed\u00a0Venezuelan program that uses free music training to help lift youngsters out of poverty.<\/p>\n Ascend started with a trial run in March 2024 at Stafford Elementary School, an Edgewood Independent School District campus on the West Side. It was back at\u00a0Stafford for a full school year that fall, and then expanded to Japhet Elementary School, a San Antonio ISD campus on the Southeast Side. Plans are being made to add a third school this fall.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Several Ascend teachers are products of El Sistema, including music director Pineda, who is a conductor and violinist.\u00a0Montalvo encouraged him to make the leap to conducting, and he considers him a mentor.<\/p>\n A different vibe<\/p>\n Pineda said that when they talk through music programs,\u00a0Montalvo always asks a question that gets to the heart of what he wants the Orchestra San Antonio\u00a0to achieve: Why would anyone care?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been the best question that anybody can ask an artistic leader, because it forces you to think why would anybody support it, why would anybody go to this concert?\u201d Pineda said. \u201cIt shapes the DNA of the organization so it doesn\u2019t look exactly as a traditional orchestra would look.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n That also gives the orchestra\u2019s concerts a distinctive feel.\u00a0They draw large crowds of all ages, including the very young.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to hear a baby crying, because they\u2019re inviting families in,\u201d said Mike Fresher,\u00a0president and CEO of the Tobin Center. \u201cThey\u2019re inviting folks from the entire community. And so it\u2019s a different experience. People cheer, people laugh, people clap.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not only this exceptional musical experience, but he has this goal of just enriching the community with classical music,” Fresher said of Montalvo. “And whether that\u2019s doing it at the school level or doing it at the Tobin Center level, it\u2019s important for him that what he\u2019s doing embraces the entire community.\u201d<\/p>\n That approach is reflected in comparatively low ticket prices: $19 to $95 for Orchestra San Antonio concerts last season.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Dowdy said he has heard at least three works at Orchestra San Antonio performances he didn\u2019t recognize and was excited to discover. That included Juan Pablo\u00a0Contreras’ mariachi-inspired piece “Mariachitl\u00e1n” and Arturo M\u00e1rquez’\u00a0“Concierto de Oto\u00f1o.” The\u00a0M\u00e1rquez work was written for trumpeter Pacho Flores, who played it at the concert.<\/p>\n \u201cNormally, I\u2019ll at least know the name \u2014 and I know a lot of modern composers \u2014 but these were even beyond that,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of artistic leadership that\u2019s there. It\u2019s like being an investigative journalist. You have to kind of go after the story. It\u2019s not going to always come to you. And they\u2019re going after it. That group is really looking for beautiful, connecting, exhilarating music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Into the future<\/p>\n Montalvo devotes much of his time to TOSA, but when has a break, he enjoys sipping a single malt scotch, smoking a cigar and reading a good book \u2014 ideally, all at the same time. He also is settling into marriage. He and Mariana Vela marked their first anniversary in May. They got to know each other through the group. She has worked with it for more than 10 years, and now serves as vice president of media and marketing.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The couple and the rest of the organization have seen it grow swiftly.\u00a0<\/p>\n Its budget has grown from $1.6 million to $3 million in the past four years. Next season, the orchestra will offer a four-concert season. Each program will be performed once. When it makes sense financially, programs will be repeated at a different venues to expand the orchestra\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n Long-term plans call for Ascend\u00a0to be available from elementary through high school on campuses across the city.<\/p>\n Montalvo and his team are aware of the financial problems that brought down the San Antonio Symphony, and they know its successor, the San Antonio Philharmonic, has struggled to find its footing. They\u2019re also aware that a third orchestral organization,\u00a0Harmonium of Texas,<\/a> will make its debut this fall.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Montalvo wishes them all well. But he\u2019s not concerned about what other orchestras are doing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really keep me up at night,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cBecause I know our path, our team knows our path, and we\u2019re going to stick to it no matter what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Montalvo, president and CEO of the Orchestra San Antonio, resisted practicing the piano as a child. 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