Alfonsina Parra

One of the foods that I definitely enjoy a lot, are chickpeas. I remember that before I became a vegetarian, approximately 5 years ago, I did not eat many vegetables or legumes, I said that I did not like them even though there were many that I had not tried. When I stopped having meat as an element of my plate, I had to enrich my meals with other types of food, I increased the vegetables and forced myself to try many of them, I discovered that they are delicious and now they are never lacking in my meals. On the other hand, I had to consume protein, I liked soy meat but I couldn't always have it in my meals, so I started to include legumes. When I was little I don't remember having tried chickpeas until one day I asked my mom to cook them and I remember that day very well, I found them so delicious that I said to my mom: "why have you never prepared it before?!" Since that day it is one of my favorite dishes, and what I like the most is that it is a nutritious and ve...

Well, my study program works differently from other university courses. Musical Interpretation has two main stages, the basic stage and the superior stage. The upper stage corresponds to the real undergraduate, but the basic stage is in the middle, you are in the university but at the same time you are not really a university student, that in the paperwork is always confusing. On the other hand, depending on the specialty (musical instrument chosen) the basic stage can have different durations, in my case, the basic piano stage lasts 8 years, and there are 2 subjects that would be piano and musical theory. This stage is a requirement to go to undergraduate, however, I think it is a bit problematic. The basic stage is designed to be carried out during the children's school studies, so its load cannot be much. The problem is that as the instrument progresses, more knowledge of other subjects such as harmony, music history and musical analysis is required, and this knowledge is necess...

  In this post I want to recommend the movie "Green Book", directed by Peter Farrelly, released in 2018. This movie is about an African-American pianist who hires a driver who takes him to different places during his piano tour. During the film there are conflicts such as racism and homophobia, it is in the drama category but it also has a lot of humor in the script. I love this movie, the way this story is told (which is based on real events) and the development of the characters, especially the driver, is very interesting. I consider it to be one of the best films on the theme of racism in the United States, it is a film that I like to see more than once, many emotions go through during the film, in my case it was anger, sadness and happiness . Another element that personally attracts me to the film is that every time the pianist talks about music and makes references to composers, I can understand them, since I know the musical works that he plays on the piano, I can under...

  The trip Im going to talk about wasn't really a vacation, but it felt like one. It was during the Winter Vacation week, my piano classmates and I went to Frutillar, we went to have a master class and give a concert at the Teatro del Lago, but the rest of the days we got to know the beautiful landscapes and eat at many restaurants. We went for about a week and a half, we stayed in some nice cabins, we were 10 friends, 5 people in each cabin. Before arriving there, we traveled by car, and we visited San Carlos, Chillán and Temuco. Already being in Frutillar we went one day to visit Puerto Varas, and when we returned to Santiago we decided to visit Valdivia as well. In Frutillar we ate in many cafes, we went to many restaurants and bars, most of them were good experiences, and in only two places we received bad attention. I think that this trip was really an incredible experience, I had a really good time with my classmates, i was able to get to know them better and live good experi...

 A country that I would like to know is France, especially Paris. I've been told that it's not a big deal, that the streets smell bad and that the French are grumpy, but I don't want that to affect my desire to go. I have many friends who have been to Paris, on trips and even to live, and they have told me great things, from the Eiffel Tower to the wonderful theaters, the outstanding Paris Opera and the beautiful museums. I wish I could go so much! Listen to music in the beautiful facilities of the Comédie-Française theater or the l'Athénée theater, or walk the famous streets of Paris that are always in the movies. I would also like to try the food, especially the french toast, croissant and ratatouille (just like in the movie). I love Paris, with my mom we always talk about traveling sometime because she also likes it a lot, we haven't been able to fulfill that dream yet, but I hope one day to fulfill it with her. Meanwhile, I just have to see the photos on Google ...

My experience was good, but difficult. I think I dont know a lot of words in english, especially connecting words, and this was a challenge for me. Many times I want write anything but I don't know how, so I look for the easiest words I can use to express it. The classes in the university were not many, the process was interrupted by the university mobilization, and I feel that I was left a bit in the middle, but its okay, there are some very important issues to resolve in the institution. I still have the next semester to complete the process On the other hand, I like blogging so much, is very entertaining and I enjoy read the other blogs too. I feel like this has helped me in my english, is a challenge, and I use a lot Wordreference, but is okay haha I hope at some point I can write something as easy as when I do it in Spanish It's still costing me a lot, write in english but specially the pronunciation, but soon I will take private lessons, so I hope to continue improv...

In this year I am living so many thing. I have difficult moments, and incredible moments.  I started my year very excited about the classes, I had many new classes but the beginning was a bit complicated. The boss of my career is very incompetent, there were many problems with taking subjects, and I spent two months without being able to register all my subjects because the schedules were poorly planned, and the head of the course did not solve anything in this regard. Then everything went back to normal and I was able to have my normal classes. So far I have done well in the subjects, and I have made a lot of effort to advance as much as possible in my instrument, not every day there is the motivation to study, but I try to do it as much as possible and give myself rest days as well. Lately I have had good news, I had been in psychotherapy for a few years, and about a month ago I took a big step that allowed me to pause therapy because it was no longer as necessary as before,...

My favorite subject this semester has been chamber music. This is a subject in which I must form small groups with musicians to play together, in this we must learn about playing music collectively, to understand each other, listen to each other, make musical decisions together, and know that we are all equally important to the time to make music. Respecting each other and learning to make decisions with other musicians, is a skill that we will have to use throughout our entire career as instrumentalists, we will not always play as soloists and many times it will be something together, which personally seems to me a very fun and friendly experience. . This is the first year that I really have this subject, I also had to take it in 2021 but in online modality it could not be carried out well, I never met my classmates, we could only "play together" synchronizing videos from our homes digitally, and my teacher that year had a particular way of doing classes that didn't help...

In today's post I will talk about my pet named Pepina. Pepina is an Argentine parrot, this is a very abundant species in Chile, which have been classified as pests, since they make "collective nests" so heavy that they can knock down trees or large branches and cause accidents. However, it is their nature and I think they are not to blame. Pepina arrived at the garden of my house with a wing injured because a cat attacked her, hurt her wing and it began to bleed. When I captured her she was very scared and aggressive, she was trying to attack me. After a while a bird vet came to see her and she did not resist being taken, the vet said that it meant that she was very bad and depressed so she was resigned to die. She started a treatment of antibiotics but she stopped eating, and the stress caused by being locked up made her go into a state of pulling out her feathers, she became malnourished and weighed 60g (her normal weight is 100g) Then her wing didn't get better and...

 Nancy and Randall Faber are the creators of the "Piano Adventures" teaching method. Nancy was born en Jackson, Tennessee in 1955. She studied both performance and composition at the Eastman School of Music, then went on to get a Bachelor Degree in Composition and Master of Fine Arts Degree in Musica composition. Randall was born in Michigan in 1954. He received both a Bachelor and Masters Degree in Piano Performance from the university of Michigan, a Mastesrs Degree in Instructional Design and a PhD in Education and Human Developed. They met in 1977 and then got married, decided to create a piano teaching method that, thanks to their piano knowledge and education, is one of the most effective and popular in the world, has been translated into many languages and It is widely used in Chile. These methods address a large number of categories, and are divided into 3 big groups: teaching children, adolescents and adults. Each of them has volumes that address classical music, jazz...

 I love go to the concerts, I usually go, the last one I went was last tuesday in CorpArtes, at the premiere for Piano Concert composed by Jorge Peña Hen. If I think in of my favourite  it is difficult, I think they are all different experiences, but there is one that I always remeber.  In 2014, my teacher (at that time my new teacher) did a concert playing all 12 of Claude Debussy's studies, these studies are so difficult! she spent 10 años practicing them to be able to play them, I was very impressed. In that year she implemented an "interactive concert" modality where there was a narrator and a projection of images to feel more familiar with the composer Claude Debussy, she wanted to explain everything that was happening whit her music. For my little 11 years old me this was great, I felt so attentive to the concert and I enjoyed it so much. In classical usic concerts there is some kind of "tradition" in wich the performer should just go quietly to sit and pl...

 Claudio Arrau is (for me) the best Chilean pianist of all time, and one of the best in the world. He was born in Chillan, he was the son of a doctor and a pianist, he was exceptional from a very young age, when he was 4 years old he could play Beethoven, at 5 he played his first concert in Chillán. Later he debuted in Santiago at the age of 6, a year later he played in Buenos Aires and when he turned 11 he played in Berlin, Germany. He received a scholarship from the Chilean government to study in Germany and he went with his whole family. When he was 16 years old he won the "Liszt prize", this award had been declared "desert" for 45 years, Arrau won it again the following year, when he was 17 years old. It is really impressive! At the age of 18 he returned to Chile, at that time he was already an international level pianist, at the age of 20 he went on tour to the United States and played as a soloist in the most important orchestras in the country, and was the fi...

I think this picture is one of my favourite pictures in the life, in this you see my grandfather and me in 2007, my father taken this photo. I dont have many memories of my grandfather as I would like, but this moment I  remember it well, my father put the electric piano on the table and I started to play, I dont know how to do it but my grandfather said I was good at it. After the photo, he took out an old voice recorder and began to "interview" me about why I liked the piano and what I was playing, I was 4 years old in this moment, I answered many nonsense things, but I sounded happy, because I loved visiting my grandfather.  In 2009 he had cancer and could not recover, I think the humanity lost something when he left. I know that if he were here now he would  continue to support me like he always did

 This is a really difficult question to answer, I think nobody can choose a only one, or at least I can´t. I think in my life I have had many "favorite movies", when I was a child, my favourite movie was "Shrek 1", then was "Hotel for dogs",  and so many others. But in these last years, there is a movie that made me feel something special, it was like finding something of my own in this one, and it expressed exactly a lot of what I thought. This movie is "Princesa Mononoke" direct by Hayao Miyazaki. This movie expressed the infinity war between nature and progress human, the biggest criticism is that que human ambition is capable of destroying everything. One of the situation in this movie, is one of the situations in this movie is that one of the characters wants to steal the head of the "servant god", which symbolizes the life of the forest, and almost at the end of the movie, he does it and runs away with his head, this causes the fo...

 I think I love technology and I use ir all the time, but my favourite definitelly is my laptop. When I was a child in my home my family have a big computer (size), the screen was very thick and the CPU was very old, the computer was very slow but was very entertaining for me, especially the games. In the time, my father gave me a CD called "300 games of computer" and was really cool! this CD have a lot of games like Pacman, Mario Bros, Spider Man, even a game of Tarzan (this was my favourite). The problem was the computer was in my Brother`s room, my older brother, and he didn`t like when I went to his room, so I couldnt play in the computer every time, only sometime.  Then, change this computer and my father bought a new, in that I could play other games, like Minecraft and GTA San Andreas, and I discovered Youtube, this was incredible. I used this computer whit my family a lot of time, then my older brother bought a laptop, and my little brother too. They had laptops, but ...

I think I want to be a pianist since I can remember. When I was a child always feeling sure with my expectatives in the future, I started playing the piano when I was 5 years old, my dad taught me, and I start study when I was 9 years old. However my dreams of the past arent the I want now, I remeber I wanted be a very famouse pianist and so recognized in the world, tour and win prizes. But now my interests changed, in my experience in the university I discovered diferents things that I think are so much important for me, and some of this is teach, is one my favourite thing, share music with others, make music with others musicians, show a lot of music of the latinoamerican`s composers that are very little know (unlike european's composers) or just take the music to places where it can make a change in the life of people.

 My name is Alfonsina Parra, I'm 19 years old, and I'm a piano student in the University of Chile. I started play the piano when I was 6 years old, I learned from my dad, he play the piano (a little) but he is a engineer. When I was 9 years old, I started piano class with Paulina Zamora, she is chilean pianist and very famous in Indiana, USA. She is my teacher actually and a learn from her every day, is a very good pianist.   I live with my mom, my two brothers, my dog and my two birds. One of my brother is a psychologist, my other brother is a student and my mom work in a Pet Shop. My dog is called Lulu, she lost of her old home and she couldn't return. One of my birds is a dove, is a long story, and my other bird is a parrot and she can't fly, then she live with me. This is my family actually.