Maestro of the Playlist

Ecomusicology

18

Maestro

of the Playlist

CMI’S SALVADOR PEREZ LOPEZ CULTIVATES COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS TO PRODUCE A VAST RANGE OF MUSIC FOR LISTENERS OF TWO STREAMING SERVICES.

Words by Elizabeth Frickey Photo by Madeleine Budde from Memories by Madeleine

Classical Music Indy’s (CMI) Streaming service was only about a year old when Salvador Perez Lopez took over as producer and streaming host in 2020. An accomplished clarinetist, Perez Lopez had graduated from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music with a master’s degree in clarinet performance the same year, during the full force of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the shift to working at CMI felt natural. “I’ve always been kind of a nerd with music, so I’ve always had my Spotify playlists filled with old and new classical music,” he says. “I’m always soaking up the sounds of these artists.”

Since then, Perez Lopez has made the position completely his own, producing for the organization and curating over 100 playlists for CMI’s streaming service. Under his direction, CMI releases a new streaming playlist every week. Every playlist is crafted with care, and Perez Lopez considers not only how each track will sound in succession, but how they represent the faces of the Indy community and the classical music community as a whole. As such, playlists generally fall into one of two categories: “New Classical” and “Local Classical.”

With these categories comes a fair share of flexibility. Especially with “New Classical” playlists, Perez Lopez has space to introduce exciting new artists, such as the group Sō Percussion, or to create playlists based off of relevant recent events, such as an Olympic Playlist for the 2021 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo or a playlist featuring film scores in honor of the 94th Academy Awards.

His playlists feature music by prominent living composers, including Emmy Award-winning composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. With this playlist and others, Perez Lopez has featured interviews with artists to get a taste not just of their music, but of their lives and careers as well.

These conversations are even more central to the “Local Classical” playlists, where Perez Lopez gets the chance to highlight community members of all different backgrounds, including composer and Indiana University South Bend Professor of Music Jorge Muñiz. These playlists often take on even more of a collaborative format, as the subject of many playlists are given a say in what gets programmed and how.

As a composer, Muñiz found this collaboration with Perez Lopez particularly insightful. “Our meetings have provided me a nice respite to stop and look back at my trajectory, which sometimes for a composer it is hard to do, as we are often keep looking forward into the next project and falling in love with new ideas,” Muñiz says.

Occasionally, “Local Classical” playlists feature non-musicians as guest curators, such as Consuelo Poland, executive director of the Latinas Welding Guild. Even as a relative newcomer to the world of classical music, Poland found joy in getting to collaborate and represent her experiences through music. “I’ve never put together a playlist that coincided with the work that I do, but it was a really great experience to talk with [Salvador] and have him curate the playlist based on what I talked about,” Poland says.

For Perez Lopez, the streaming service is about far more than making playlists as a tangible product –– it’s also about community and visibility. “By the end of every playlist, I want to make sure I have a wide representation of music for everyone,” he says. ■

You can find Salvador Perez Lopez’s work with CMI Streaming online at https://classicalmusicindy.org/cmi-streaming/#/ . Ecomusicology

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