Horacio Franco, musician: “I am a workman but I recognize that there was abandonment of the Fine Arts”

If there is someone who knows well the winding paths of the world of music and culture in Mexico, it is the outstanding flute player Horacio Franco (Mexico City, 61 years old). With a career spanning more than 40 years, Franco has seen how support for Culture has weakened in different administrations, but he concedes that that of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador was “difficult” for artists due to budget cuts. The musician, a prodigy who began to stand out in the sector since he was a child, considers himself an “obradorist,” but he does not lift his finger to point out the wound that the so-called republican austerity has left in the cultural world. “With all the social programs that López Obrador had for people in need, it would never have been possible to provide the same support to the Fine Arts as before. Being as much of an Obradorista as I am, I can say that there was abandonment, that we did reproach the previous Government for not being interested, but they did not have enough money and it was not their priority,” says the musician.

What hurts him most, he says, is the abandonment of the music school system, whose students cry out for attention due to the infrastructure that is falling apart, the pianos full of moths or other musical instruments in poor condition, the lack of support economic or outdated teaching methods. The students of the National Conservatory of Music, where Franco has taught, have taken the leadership of that institution to demand that the Cultural authorities listen to their claims. The same thing happens at the Higher School of Music, where students have hung banners demanding “decent facilities.” A disaster that has exploded with the new Administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, but that Franco affirms has been dragging on for the last 30 years. He also regrets the terrible working conditions of the teachers, some of them with salaries of only 3,200 pesos per month (approximately $160). He himself, despite his long academic career and as a musician, accepts that he does not earn what he should. “It’s terrible,” he says, although he does not place all responsibility on a Government that, he says, made it a priority to lift millions of people out of poverty.

“Of course austerity affected, but López Obrador had a consistent motto: ‘For the good of all, the poor first.’ I can assure you that he did not take salaries from the entire staff of Mexico’s cultural infrastructure; The problem was that all the extra budget institutions had to hold festivals, hire artists, hold exhibitions, tour artistic groups outside the country, all that budget disappeared,” the musician admits in a telephone interview while traveling on Tuesday with a group of students to play at the Cervantino International Festival, one of the largest music and theater gatherings on the continent, which takes place every year in Guanajuato.

The cuts were a significant blow, added to that of the pandemic, which required the closure of theaters, museums and cultural centers. Franco affirms that before the last Administration he could “bill” 100 concerts a month, but that after the pandemic and budget cuts those presentations were reduced to a dozen. “It affected us musicians, artists, actors, dancers a lot, because that money was previously given to necessary issues, but for him (López Obrador) sumptuous,” says the musician. Franco says that some of the funds went “to issues of community culture, to the promotion of indigenous art,” which was one of the main topics on the agenda of the previous Secretary of Culture, Alejandra Frausto. “She did what she could, she did what the president needed to do: Support for community cultures and the poorest people, the indigenous people, the heritage that was falling and unrestored,” acknowledges the musician.

Although he admits that the wound opened by the scissor blow does not stop bleeding, the musician also says that we must pay attention to other serious problems that the country’s cultural sector is facing, such as nepotism and corruption in the unions. “The National Institute of Fine Arts (INBAL) and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) are two institutions that have ancestral conflicts at the union level, they are very tough, aggressive unions and sometimes with a lot of corruption,” he says. “I’m not afraid to say it, because I am already beyond good and evil and because that’s the way it is, there is a lot of corruption and, furthermore, there are many unions. That takes up a good part of the budget. Nepotism is also entrenched. We must purge the entire union system in Mexico and that will not take six years; It’s going to cost 20 or 30, until they understand that that’s not the point,” he argues.

Another problem in the sector, he reveals, is the ineptitude of some public officials, who do not have the experience or qualifications to manage budgets or direct cultural institutions with good hands. He gives as an example the Mexican pianist Silvia Navarrete, who directs the National Conservatory of Music and is facing student discontent these days. Franco acknowledges that he admires Navarrete’s career, but assures that the position has “overtaken” her and that she has not known how to take the reins of the institution. “These schools have had little support, yes, but they have also been administered by prominent musicians who have no idea what public administration and cultural management mean,” Franco accuses.

As an academic, he regrets the level of decline in music teaching and joins the demand for change, which includes the appointments made in schools. “We have always had the need for someone to manage the resources well, because we are dedicated to making art, to playing or teaching our instruments or showing our singing, but we cannot manage, we have two left hands to manage the money,” he says. “The issue of public administration needs very specialized people to manage budgets in an efficient and transparent way and this is what colleagues who have remained in the conservatory or in schools have not been able to do,” Franco questions. The musician hopes that the situation will improve for artists under the Culture mandate of Claudia Curiel, a trusted manager of the so-called Fourth Transformation appointed to heal the wounds of the cultural sector due to austerity. “A balance has to be achieved so that the Government supports the entire Fine Arts sector,” he recommends.