by Jane Swezey
Maestro Horacio Ozaeta Méndez marches to the beat of
a different drummer. His impressive biography bears years of experience in two
disciplines: music and journalism. But he does not have a phone and monthly
publishes and personally delivers his magazines to literature racks in La Antigua
Guatemala.
The magazine, titled simply Música, Revista Cultural,
in Spanish and free of charge, concentrates on cultural arts and especially
all aspects of music. The six double-sided pages feature articles on music and
musicians, composers, musical instruments, announcements of coming as well as
critiques of recent performances and a brief calendar of cultural events. On
the last page of each issue are musical anecdotes. “I often get a good
laugh-out-loud when reading these,” says one reader. Maestro Ozaeta created
the magazine in 1959 and has been editor, researcher, writer, publisher and
business manager for almost 50 devoted years.
The maestro, a distinguished and stately gentleman, buses to
La Antigua each month, dressed in a business suit, with 800 of the 2,000 current
magazines to distribute. About the suit he says, “It’s my habit.
I’m not comfortable in casual clothes.” His characteristic commitment
comes from years of practiced discipline.
Born in La Antigua, he began playing the piano at age 12 and
at 15 moved to Guatemala City to enter the Conservatorio Nacional de Música
on a scholarship, an institution of which he later became director. After graduation
he founded the Conservatorio Nacional de Música de Occidente in Quetzaltenango.
He was also piano soloist and director of the Quetzaltenango Sinfónica
del Conservatorio Nacional and of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Ozaeta
taught music for 32 years and continues to work with three or four students
each month.
But the man of music had a second love. He went to work for
Diario de Centro América and then Prensa Libre as editor of the cultural
page, a position he held for 30 years. During that time he equipped himself
with a degree in communication from the University of San Carlos and served
for 25 years as president of the Asociación de Redactores de Actividades
Culturales.
Maestro Ozaeta combines his two lifelong interests in the Música
magazine. Drawing on a network of contacts developed throughout his dual careers,
he calls on former colleagues, peruses newspapers and watches TV notices to
collect information on upcoming cultural events. His pride and pleasure is distributing
the information. Devoted to perpetuating the appreciation of music and to national
and international artists whose talents enrich the art, the maestro lives by
the conviction, “One’s legacy is what one does.”
