James Korn
From the time Andrés Franco was a young boy growing up in the tranquil climate of Medellín, Colombia, he was constantly surrounded by music.
His father Jorge Franco, an ethnomusicologist — one who studies the music of other cultures — exposed Franco to the sounds of everything from jazz to folk music. Franco’s father even furthered this ambition by aiding in the young musician’s piano studies. After years of dedication and practice, Franco would eventually study under Jose Feghali, the 1985 Van Cliburn gold medalist, and attend piano workshops with Rudolph Buchbinder in Switzerland and Lev Naumov in France. From there, he studied conducting with Marin Alsop, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Helmut Rilling, Gerard Schwarz, Leonard Slatkin, Gustav Meier, and Kurt Masur.
Franco has two master's degrees from TCU, where he continued his study of piano.
Most recently, Franco served as the executive director of City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, where he led a complex operation that manages the largest exiled writer residency program in the world. City of Asylum presents more than 160 free arts and culture programs annually, and operates eight apartments, as well as a bookstore, restaurant, and reading garden. Prior to that, he served as the resident conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestras, and music director of the Signature Symphony.
Currently, Franco is undertaking the role of first executive director for DNAWORKS. In addition, three new co-curators also will join Co-Founder Daniel Banks: Troy Lambert, Sarita Ocón, and Seema Sueko.
DNAWORKS is an LLC with a not-for-profit fiscal sponsor arts and service organization based in Fort Worth and Pittsburgh dedicated to social dialogue and healing through the arts. Founded in 2006 by Daniel Banks and Adam McKinney, DNAWORKS centers multi-ethnic and LGBTQ voices and experiences to create more complex representations of identity, culture, class, and heritage through dance, theatre, film, writing, and art installation. They are also involved, along with several other organizations, with the creation of The Fred Rouse Center For Arts and Community Healing, which will be housed in the former KKK building at 1012 N. Main Street.
Fort Worth Magazine had a chance to chat with Franco about his life in music, DNAWORKS, and Fort Worth.
FM: What are your thoughts now that you have been picked to be DNAWORKS first executive director?
AF: I'm very excited about this opportunity for many reasons. One is the values and mission of the organization. They really line up with my own personal values and with the kind of work that I have been doing. There are other things that excite me. Fort Worth has been a very important city in my life. I moved to the United States in 2000. I lived here on and off for about 11 1/2 years. I went to TCU and studied piano and then conducting. So, I know Fort Worth very well. I moved away and came back in 2007 to work with the Fort Worth Symphony. I met my wife in Fort Worth, that's where we got married.
Now about DNAWORKS, I think the work that we have been doing for almost 18 years is very important. This idea of bringing people together for dialogue and healing through the arts is something that is always needed. I do believe that this work is crucial to move forward.
FM: What updates can you give us on the progress of The Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing?
AF: This project is something that drew me to the organization as well. DNAWORKS helped catalyze the project, and we were one of eight founding organizations. We are part of a coalition of organizations working on this project. And Daniel Banks remains very involved in Transform 1012. He is the board chair and right now they are in the middle of the design architect selection process. So, that is the focus right now. As they go through this process, we are exploring different scenarios about how DNAWORKS will have an active role once the building is open.
FM: Tell us a bit about your musical background.
AF: I come from a family of musicians and artists. My father is an ethnomusicologist. So, he traveled Colombia recording the music of the different ethnic groups in Colombia. I grew up with a lot of different types of music in my house. Some of the native Colombian music, some folk music, jazz, but he also had a conservatory-style academy with my uncle, who is a composer, and my other uncle, who's a visual artist. So, I grew up in this very artistic environment. The academy they had was for theater, dance music, and the visual art. I grew up with classical music, but also all different types of music. I decided to go to college to study piano for my undergrad. I moved from Medellín to Bogota, the capital, to finish my undergrad in piano.
I won third prize in a national piano competition. And that's how I met the late Jose Feghali who was a winner of the Cliburn competition and an artist in residence at TCU at the time. I really loved the way he played. I took some lessons with him and I loved the way he taught. So, I decided I need to study with him. It wasn’t long after this that I was accepted at Texas Christian University. In Fort Worth, I fell in love with conducting. So, I finished one master's in piano with Jose [Feghali] as a teacher and then a master's in orchestra conducting at TCU with Herman Gutierrez. So, I became a conductor.
FM: What is it about music that drove you enough to make it your life’s work?
AF: I love the arts in general and something that always drew me to the arts is the way they help you communicate with other human beings. They allow you to connect, and they allow you to express yourself, and they allow you to learn from others at a very deep level. I'm talking again about the arts in general. I'm talking about literature; I'm talking about theater; I'm talking about the visual arts; I'm talking about dance. And, of course, I'm talking about music. There is a certain kind of power between the performer and the audience. There's a special feeling of connection, and then in music, in particular, is a connection that goes beyond the verbal. So, you feel you understand someone better, you understand some feeling better, some idea, some atmosphere better without the use of words.
That makes the arts very powerful. And as a performer — as a pianist and then as a conductor — it is just these ways to connect with others. When my father brought recordings from different indigenous groups in Colombia, the music they produce is created in a purely ritual environment. And I think that's something in Western societies that tends to get lost. They are more like a performance. But there is this element of the art that is about bringing people together and creating community. One of the reasons I'm excited to be at DNAWORKS is because that's one of the things that we believe in: That there is this connection of art and a ritual community and healing.
FM: What were some of your first impressions of Fort Worth when you arrived here in 2000?
AF: My first impression is that it was very hot. I'm from Colombia and Medellín is a city that is about a mile high in altitude. So, our weather is normally more like in the 70s, maybe the 80s. I think when I was growing up, the highs were in the mid-to-upper 80s and then the lows are in the 60s normally. I wasn't prepared for the heat. I also remember when it was so hot outside, going to the Kimbell [Art Museum] at the time was my refuge. And, of course, Bass Hall was already open and being able to go to the symphony, being a pianist, the Cliburn competition has played a very important role. Anyone who's a pianist knows about Van Cliburn and about the Cliburn competition. So, I was happy to see so much support for the arts. At TCU, I found a community of people who came from different places. As you can imagine, the piano department and the music school, it's not a huge music school, so everyone knows each other. And I remember having friends from Italy and Russia and, of course, a lot of them from Colombia, from Mexico, and from India. It was, believe it or not, a very international place to be.
FM: Final question for you, Andrés. Why do you think social justice goes hand in hand with art?
AF: I think the arts have a way of reaching beyond thinking about the problem, even beyond intellectual engagement with a problem. They connect with your feelings and with your inner thoughts and they also have a way of bringing people together that it is really important when it comes to social justice work. If you go to a play, you listen to music, you read a book and then you connect with other human beings, you kind of see the world from different perspectives.
I think there's a way where you can begin to understand somebody else better by engaging in the art. So, that is crucial for social justice work ... to be able to understand others and to understand what's happening. But the other component is the healing component. I think through the art, you can begin to start catalyzing the healing process.
If you are in any of the performing arts, typically you have more than one person. In dance and theater, or people watching a movie, you are surrounded by other people who are experiencing the same art. So, in a way you are connected at a very personal level with the artwork, but you are also experiencing it with others around you. It creates a sense of community and the kind of work that we do at DNAWORKS creates a communication between the audience and the artists because of something we call "story circles."
Story circles normally take place after a program or production presented by DNAWORKS. In these, we ask the audience to share their response, their personal stories with the performers. This creates a two-way, instead of being a one-way, communication. It’s more holistic. In a two-way communication, where the artist also hears from the audience, we get to know each other more intimately and share experiences. The arts are uniquely built to create that exchange. And that is when healing can begin and does begin to happen.
