May 4, 2026
Debuting conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya traces musical origins
by Steve Holt
Growing up in Peru, conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya wasn’t steeped in the kind of music he conducts today.
“I got into Italian opera when working on a stage crew, and I danced in a folk company when I was 15 or 16. So that was the music I grew up with.” A moment of discovery came when he enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. “I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, what is this music?’ I had never heard Brahms or Tchaikovsky symphonies back home. From this I learned that music is music. It doesn’t matter what you know, from what style or what period. If music touches you, then it’s music.”
Harth-Bedoya makes his San Francisco Symphony Orchestral Series debut this month with a dynamic concert highlighting the music of Spain and the Americas—a grand tour of a spectacular sonic landscape.
Does Harth-Bedoya consider himself a musical ambassador for Latin America?
“Oh, that’s too much of an honor! I would say I’m a messenger for that music, but I believe music comes from places in countries, not simply countries. Look at the Inca Empire. Before the Spaniards arrived, the Empire encompassed what is now Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina. What was one country is now six, but the places haven’t changed. The Andes are where the Andes are. The Amazon River is exactly where it’s always been. So I prefer to refer to music from the Americas as being from specific places on Earth connected to people, rather than necessarily countries.”
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“I got into Italian opera when working on a stage crew, and I danced in a folk company when I was 15 or 16. So that was the music I grew up with.” A moment of discovery came when he enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. “I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, what is this music?’ I had never heard Brahms or Tchaikovsky symphonies back home. From this I learned that music is music. It doesn’t matter what you know, from what style or what period. If music touches you, then it’s music.”
Harth-Bedoya makes his San Francisco Symphony Orchestral Series debut this month with a dynamic concert highlighting the music of Spain and the Americas—a grand tour of a spectacular sonic landscape.
Does Harth-Bedoya consider himself a musical ambassador for Latin America?
“Oh, that’s too much of an honor! I would say I’m a messenger for that music, but I believe music comes from places in countries, not simply countries. Look at the Inca Empire. Before the Spaniards arrived, the Empire encompassed what is now Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina. What was one country is now six, but the places haven’t changed. The Andes are where the Andes are. The Amazon River is exactly where it’s always been. So I prefer to refer to music from the Americas as being from specific places on Earth connected to people, rather than necessarily countries.”
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Harth-Bedoya is founder and artistic director of Caminos del Inka, a nonprofit dedicated to performing and preserving the musical heritage of South America. The project was inspired by Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Project, created in 1998 to foster cross-cultural collaboration. The cellist encouraged Harth-Bedoya to create something like Silkroad for South American music. “It basically is the poetic idea of The Caminos del Inca, a system of trails and roads connecting all those parts of the Inca Empire,” Harth-Bedoya says. “It’s a metaphor for the music of this region. The mission is very simple: To research, preserve, publish, and promote the music of the Americas in whatever form, from any period. In fact, the earliest music that I’ve worked with in this project is from 2,000 BCE. Think of it, Peruvian music in the time of the ancient Egyptians!”
For his program with the San Francisco Symphony, Harth-Bedoya offers a newer work with Peruvian origins, Jimmy López’s Shift, heard in its United States premiere. A concerto for trombone commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, Shift gives Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins a chance to show what he and his instrument can do. “It just pushes the trombone’s abilities to deal with things it hasn’t done before,” says Harth-Bedoya. The title refers to the Doppler effect, the apparent change in a sound as its source moves. Shift’s movements have names like Sound, Water, and Light. “I’m always very, very attentive if a composer uses a word, either in the title or in actual indications in the score, such as ‘with expression,’ or ‘with passion’ and the like. I’ve never conducted this piece; for now, all I have are these keywords, and an instrument that can be as powerful as an entire orchestra. Still, I can tell from the score, it’s a very engaging piece.”
While the other pieces on Harth-Bedoya’s program have elements of dance, it wasn’t originally planned that way.
“We were looking first at what the orchestra hasn’t played in a while, like Turina’s Danzas fantásticas. Then we began thinking of how to unite what we call “Iberia America,” Spain and the Americas. That led us to Ginastera (from Argentina). And Ravel is a must. He was a French citizen, but of Basque descent. So it created this big pot, a fusion of dances and rhythms.”
Danzas fantásticas is a 20th-century piece with deep roots in Spain’s past. “In the 19th century, the most famous ‘Spanish’ orchestral music was composed by French or Russian composers, but not by Spanish composers. In this work, Turina very much looks back to the earlier, and definitely Spanish, romantic musical tradition.”
The danzas in the piece are all classic Spanish dances: a jota from Aragon, a Basque zortziko, an Andalusian farruca. They’re each introduced by a quotation from the novel La orgía by José Más, a contemporary of Turina, describing metaphorically the meaning of the dance. Harth-Bedoya offers a translation for the first one: “‘It appears as if the figures in that incomparable painting were moving inside the chalice of a flower.’” He marvels: “I mean, just what do you do with that!”
In addition to conducting orchestras and operas in leading venues all over the world, Harth-Bedoya makes time for teaching. He’s resident director of orchestras and professor of conducting at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. And he established the Conducting Institute, created to teach the fundamentals of conducting to students from high school and up, through workshops, courses, and seminars.
Citing mentors such as Otto-Werner Mueller at Curtis, and later Kurt Masur and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Harth-Bedoya says, “I’ve been so blessed, and I’m so grateful to so many individuals who have helped me become who I am.” He stresses that in teaching, he’s the one who benefits the most. “I don’t call it teaching, I call it sharing. I share what I have done and what I know, but I also share what I don’t know, because I’ll start learning it in order to advance. This teaching-sharing has always been in my mind as a way to give back to the people who have helped me, but then I give it to the ones coming after me. I just love it. It’s very inspiring to be able to benefit younger musicians, and also learn from them.”
Steve Holt is an arts reporter and Contributing Writer to the San Francisco Symphony program book.
Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducts works by Ginastera, López, Turina, and Ravel, May 29–30.
For his program with the San Francisco Symphony, Harth-Bedoya offers a newer work with Peruvian origins, Jimmy López’s Shift, heard in its United States premiere. A concerto for trombone commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, Shift gives Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins a chance to show what he and his instrument can do. “It just pushes the trombone’s abilities to deal with things it hasn’t done before,” says Harth-Bedoya. The title refers to the Doppler effect, the apparent change in a sound as its source moves. Shift’s movements have names like Sound, Water, and Light. “I’m always very, very attentive if a composer uses a word, either in the title or in actual indications in the score, such as ‘with expression,’ or ‘with passion’ and the like. I’ve never conducted this piece; for now, all I have are these keywords, and an instrument that can be as powerful as an entire orchestra. Still, I can tell from the score, it’s a very engaging piece.”
While the other pieces on Harth-Bedoya’s program have elements of dance, it wasn’t originally planned that way.
“We were looking first at what the orchestra hasn’t played in a while, like Turina’s Danzas fantásticas. Then we began thinking of how to unite what we call “Iberia America,” Spain and the Americas. That led us to Ginastera (from Argentina). And Ravel is a must. He was a French citizen, but of Basque descent. So it created this big pot, a fusion of dances and rhythms.”
Danzas fantásticas is a 20th-century piece with deep roots in Spain’s past. “In the 19th century, the most famous ‘Spanish’ orchestral music was composed by French or Russian composers, but not by Spanish composers. In this work, Turina very much looks back to the earlier, and definitely Spanish, romantic musical tradition.”
The danzas in the piece are all classic Spanish dances: a jota from Aragon, a Basque zortziko, an Andalusian farruca. They’re each introduced by a quotation from the novel La orgía by José Más, a contemporary of Turina, describing metaphorically the meaning of the dance. Harth-Bedoya offers a translation for the first one: “‘It appears as if the figures in that incomparable painting were moving inside the chalice of a flower.’” He marvels: “I mean, just what do you do with that!”
In addition to conducting orchestras and operas in leading venues all over the world, Harth-Bedoya makes time for teaching. He’s resident director of orchestras and professor of conducting at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. And he established the Conducting Institute, created to teach the fundamentals of conducting to students from high school and up, through workshops, courses, and seminars.
Citing mentors such as Otto-Werner Mueller at Curtis, and later Kurt Masur and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Harth-Bedoya says, “I’ve been so blessed, and I’m so grateful to so many individuals who have helped me become who I am.” He stresses that in teaching, he’s the one who benefits the most. “I don’t call it teaching, I call it sharing. I share what I have done and what I know, but I also share what I don’t know, because I’ll start learning it in order to advance. This teaching-sharing has always been in my mind as a way to give back to the people who have helped me, but then I give it to the ones coming after me. I just love it. It’s very inspiring to be able to benefit younger musicians, and also learn from them.”
Steve Holt is an arts reporter and Contributing Writer to the San Francisco Symphony program book.
Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducts works by Ginastera, López, Turina, and Ravel, May 29–30.
