José Manuel Lezcano, an artist lecturer in guitar at USM’s Osher School of Music, works with freshman student Decian Otieno. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

José Manuel Lezcano sits with his guitar across his lap, an elbow on the instrument and his hand on his chin. He listens as University of Southern Maine freshman Decian Otieno plays a piece by 19th-century Italian composer Matteo Carcassi on his own guitar. When the student finishes, he looks to his teacher.

“Very nice,” Lezcano says. “There’s a lot of improvement.”

Lezcano and Otieno sit in a classroom at Corthell Concert Hall on USM’s Gorham campus. The many chairs there are empty; this lesson is one on one. The school year is winding down, just in time for Lezcano to travel to Buffalo to premiere a concerto he wrote for musicians there.

This is the life of an artist lecturer at USM’s Osher School of Music, where Lezcano has been teaching this year. He is a guitarist who has played around the world, as well as a composer and an academic. This was his first year at USM; he spent 30 years teaching at Keene State College in New Hampshire until he took a buyout in 2021. That professional change was painful, Lezcano said, but it also gave him the opportunity to work on his latest composition and brought him to his current position at USM.

“It’s a nice environment because so much of the emphasis is on performance,” he said of the Osher School. “I think that’s the heart of the matter. A music program should be about performance.”

Alan Kaschub, the school’s director, said the 25 or so artist faculty members are usually active performers in the region who teach private lessons for applied music students. Lezcano stood out in part because he often brings his Cuban heritage into his work.

“He’s a very good performer,” said Kaschub. “We were particularly interested in his background in Latin American music.”

The music school has roughly 120 graduate and undergraduate students. This semester, Lezcano taught seven students, as well as a three-person ensemble and an advanced study course called Literature of the Major Instrument for a graduate student. Kerschub said the group of students who focus on the guitar is often small, but the instrument is fascinating and accessible to those who want to learn and practice.

“You’re playing the same great kind of music that you play as a soloist,” said Kaschub. “You can do it by yourself. You can do it in your bedroom in your house without disturbing anyone. It’s not electric guitar or a drum set.”

FROM PERFORMER TO TEACHER

Lezcano, 62, was born in Havana and immigrated to the United States as a toddler. Growing up in Miami, he started guitar lessons at a local music store when he was 11 years old and immediately took to the instrument. He soon was studying with Cuban guitarist Jose Costa and performed his first recital from memory when he was 14 years old. His father, a great supporter of his musical ambitions, wrote letter after letter to get his son an audience with Spanish classical guitarist Andrés Segovia. Teenage Lezcano played two pieces by Fernando Sor. After the first one, Segovia told him, “You’re playing very fast, but you’re not saying anything.” Lezcano tried to play the second one more expressively, and he was rewarded when Segovia said he had the talent to make a career out of his music.

“He said, ‘He needs to be enrolled in a conservatory because if it weren’t for his talent, I would say it’s too late,’” said Lezcano. “I was 14.”

As a teenager, Lezcano also won the Interlochen Concerto Competition. He studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music for four years and went on to get a master’s degree at the University of South Carolina and a Ph.D. in music theory at Florida State University. He was looking for a path in academia that would provide both a stable job and the opportunity to perform, and he eventually got a position at Keene State, where he taught for 30 years. He taught music theory and aural skills, but he also brought his background and interest in Latin American music to campus. Lezcano conducted research on a Fulbright Award in Ecuador about the guitar as a ritual instrument in Indigenous solstice festivals, and he later taught students at Keene to play the instruments of the Andes.

“I think what I like most about it is that you’re really playing a pivotal role in a young person’s life,” he said. “You’re mentoring them. You’re seeing them grow.”

José Manuel Lezcano balances his teaching job with performing and composing. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

When he took a buyout two years ago, he wasn’t quite ready to give up teaching. Lezcano spent a semester as a visiting professor and performer at the University of Minnesota, and he came to USM this year. He still teaches as an adjunct at Keene State and lives near that campus, but on Fridays, he drives three hours to Gorham to teach hours of private lessons.

“The drive is long, but you know what I’ve been doing?” he said. “I’ve been educating myself on music that I’m not real familiar with. Lately, I bought a box set of the Beethoven piano sonatas because I don’t know them.”

THERAPY THROUGH COMPOSING

Lezcano started composing in his 30s. He was traveling every year to play at festivals in Ecuador and meeting many performers who were also composers. So he decided to try it and found that he enjoyed the challenge, and now he has written for the guitar but also for other instruments. One of his guitar concertos, called “Remembrances / Recuerdos,” received Grammy nominations for best contemporary composition and best soloist with orchestra. He likened the experience to fitting puzzle pieces together, and now he carries a sketchbook with all his ideas. It is also the type of consuming challenge that can be helpful during personal or professional tumult.

“Composition can be great therapy,” he said. “When you’ve had an issue in your life – for example, if you’ve had a heartbreak of some sort, which we all do – it’s great therapy to write a slow movement.”

JoAnn Falletta is the music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. When she was appointed to that role in 1998, she became the first woman to lead a major American ensemble. Like Lezcano, Falletta is a guitarist. She first learned of his work years ago when she discovered his first composition, called “Cuban Sketches,” for guitar and flute. She loved the piece, recorded it with her trio, and sent it to him.

“It was so well written, but it was totally fun,” she said. “It had a lot of his Cuban background in it, so it was very sophisticated. I realized this was a very serious composer who happened to be able to write music that people loved without making it simple.”

Falletta and Lezcano stayed in touch and starting talking about a possible piece for an orchestra. He has written concertos before – for guitarists, which are not usually part of orchestras but sometimes accompany them, and for other instruments, including the flute. This time, he set out to write a concerto for two basses. Lezcano talked frequently with the two musicians in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra but had creative freedom as he worked. Partway through the project, he added a companion part for a harpist, a touch Falletta saw as inspired by his own experience with the guitar. She described the collaboration as “a great honor.”

“It’s such a beautiful score,” she said. “Sometimes you need to leave composers alone. They get these wonderful ideas, these ideas of genius, when they’re working.”

Lezcano will go to Buffalo next week for rehearsals, and he’ll be there to hear the first performance. The concerto will be performed May 5 and 6, and Falletta said it will be recorded for future distribution. But first, he has to finish the semester at USM, where he plans to teach again next year.

Decian Otieno, who has been working with José Manuel Lezcano all year, describes him as an intuitive teacher. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Otieno, one of the students Lezcano has worked with throughout the year, was born in Kenya and started playing guitar when he was 4 years old. He played percussion instruments in the Safaricom Youth Orchestra while he was growing up, and his family moved to the United States in 2020 in part to further his music education. After he graduated from Deering High School in Portland, he enrolled at USM to major in classical guitar performance.

“I love that there are no boundaries as to how far you can improve with the guitar because there are very many styles, especially in classical guitar,” he said.

During one of their last lessons of the year, he and Lezcano worked through a challenging section of the Carcassi piece. Otieno said Lezcano has introduced him to music that sounds beautiful and also helped him improve his technique. He described Lezcano as an intuitive teacher.

“He is very good at pointing out what students are having trouble with,” he said. “Many times, I have had an issue trying to vocalize why I am not able to perform a certain position while playing a certain song. He’s able to pick it out by judging the way I sit, the way I hold the guitar in my lap, how elevated the guitar is.”

Otieno watches Lezcano carefully as he demonstrates the correct placement of his fingers on the neck of his own guitar. Otieno copies him, and his notes are smooth.

“There we go,” Otieno says. “That was much easier.”

“Bravo,” Lezcano says, and his student played on.