On Friday, Sept. 26, guitar students at La Salle attended a concert by prize-winning Argentinian guitarist Cecilia Zabala. She was here as part of a program by Casa Della Zisa (CDZ) Collegium Musica, which shares music and culture as a means of building community. The concert involved performances of original songs and lessons to the guitar students.

It was no happy accident that Zabala came to be playing at La Salle. “I try to do this at least once a year, have professionals in,” said guitar teacher Mr. Otto Wild. 

So, when he found out that she was coming to Portland, he contacted his friend Dr. Peter Zisa, who was in charge of getting her from Argentina to Portland, and arranged for her to visit La Salle.

Zabala is a guitarist, singer, and composer. She has received the First National Prize for the Arts in 2018 and has taught at institutions such as Yale University and the New York Classical Guitar Society.

Her guitar journey started at age six when her mother asked her if she wanted to start taking lessons. After she performed at her first concert at age 14, receiving many compliments, she decided she wanted to become a musician — a career that can sometimes be difficult to find success in, according to Mr. Wild.

He said that Zabala is another musician who is making money by being a musician and touring, and, as he said, “that’s inspiring.”

Mr. Wild, who has been teaching guitar at La Salle for 30 years, considers himself fortunate to be a musician who is making money. “There are a lot of musicians out there that have a hard time making money,” he said.

He hopes that students were uplifted and inspired by seeing a successful musical artist.

For junior Isaiah Engelen in Advanced Guitar, he found that “it gives me hope that I could potentially make a living off of something that I like, playing guitar.”

Engelen has been playing guitar for eight years and wants to explore a career in playing guitar in film score, video game score, or writing his own music. One of his guitar inspirations is Marcin Patrzałek, which he explained is “more like fast-paced classical with a lot of arpeggios, kind of like Cecilia’s work, but more dark sounding,” contrary to Zabala’s warm and uplifting songs, which Engelen said he has a soft spot for.

Engelen enjoyed listening to Zabala perform her original songs, especially a song titled “Perezoso” about her cats.

Her performance opened by playing “Message in a Bottle” by The Police. As soon as she started singing, she played a few measures and successfully got a room full of high schoolers interested in what she had to say.

Afterwards, she played a variety of original pieces and a traditional Argentinian song, called a “Zamba.”

But, around 2:40 p.m., the students in Guitar 1 and Advanced Guitar had to head back to class, leaving only the students in Guitar 2.

With just 20 minutes left of school, she gave the students a brief master class.

Zabala started by teaching them a strumming pattern along with some traditional Argentinian rhythms, and then moved on to the chords before beginning to sing. She taught them about the importance of “build[ing] a relationship with the guitar,” as she said.

This connection with her guitar is something she emphasized while she performed as well, and one that sophomore Amelia Chapman in Guitar 2 resonated with. “It’s been so therapeutic to have my guitar and be able to play it and just relax,” she said.

Zabala also helped show them the proper way to hold a guitar, which stood out to Chapman.

“When Cecilia corrected our posture, she was really funny about it, but she was also very direct about it,” she said. “It actually helped me a lot to have better posture.”

Zabala’s good stage presence and audience interactions were also noticed by Mr. Wild.

“I think she interacted really, really well with students,” Mr. Wild said. He thought that she did a good job playing to a high school audience and was very competent.

But, as they say, nothing lasts forever. As Zabala was finishing up her lesson, the announcement chime rang out and information about sports practices was given.