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National Geographic, inception of the idea.

I invited Philip Glass to the South American premiere of his Eight Symphony in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in December 2017. After the concert I took him for a short vacation in the Galápagos. When we arrived to Puerto Ayora, we had a nice chance to share thoughts on music, performances, and projects. After visiting the Charles Darwin Research Station, I commented on some facts I learnt when I arrived to Ecuador: the archipelago's ostensible importance as a sanctuary of environmental protection, the World Travel Agency's indication as privileged destination, and the seclusion of its population, due to the established preservation of its fauna and flora.

I said to him that it would be ideal to create there a music school, as there were none available to the inhabitants. At the same time, I explained that I would like to teach music as a projection and mirror of what I absorbed from different sources in my adolescence -which made me who I am as an artist. I learnt to be a musician while studying humanities in my high school, and later read mathematics at the university. I combined them all when studying composition, and then conducting at Yale University.

He replied to me that I could produce a musical event in order to propose that sort of project. He added that he could help me: he offered me his musical work in "Jane", a National Geographic film about the life of Jane Goodall. We then discussed the implications of her lifelong calling, as she is a leader for causes that redefined the relationship between humans and animals. As one of the most important conservationists in the planet, she made known deforestation as one of several issues contributing to the current environmental crisis.

He then made a concrete offer to have his music available for me, so then I would ask the permission to accompany the film, as 'live' music in the Galápagos. Then I got in touch with NatGeo to propose them to give the South-American premiere of the movie -with the film score played by the orchestra I led. It took me months to put together the whole operation: get the support from National Geographic, bring the entire Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra to the Galápagos, rehearse and present the film to the public, and bring several programs to be played live in Puerto Ayora.

In all our concerts for the first edition of our so-called "Music for the Planet Festival" 2018 I would speak to audiences about the inherent power of music as a tool to connect people. I referred to it as a practice to achieve a better comprehension of our inner world, as a wonderful activity that produces numerous connections in our brains, affecting the limbic system -which processes emotions and memory. Eloquently, music is a wonderful tool to be cognizant of ourselves -of our senses when enjoying it, and listening to it, of our bodies when playing it, of our feelings when being moved by a hearing. I also re-phrased the old idea of self-knowledge being the beginning of wisdom. I expressively imparted the idea of 'knowing our internal world reflects on superior knowledge of the external one'.

There, after a couple of symphony concerts, we presented National Geographic's "Jane", so we had the biggest attending crowd in the history of the Galápagos. There the inception of the idea turned to be real, palpable, unmistakable.