“The more you love teaching, the more passionate you are about music, the better the response you get from your students. When you teach, you learn, because you discover your own potential and surpass your own limits. The job of the music teacher is to cultivate the spirit – when you teach, you don’t just teach notes, you also provide an example in terms of ethics, morals and character.”
Iliana Morales
(extract from a Conversation with Eva Sandoval about Elegy for a dream)
Royal Conservatory of Madrid
The Royal Conservatory of Madrid is the oldest conservatory in Spain and many of the country’s greatest performers and composers have studied there since it opened its doors almost 200 years ago.
Iliana Morales was a faculty member at the conservatory for almost a decade, teaching Collaborative Piano to undergraduate students. The experience she gained in the process enabled her not only to enhance her teaching skills, but also to expand her chamber-music repertoire by working in collaboration with her violinist, cellist and flautist colleagues.
The Royal Conservatory of Madrid is the oldest conservatory in Spain and many of the country’s greatest performers and composers have studied there since it opened its doors almost 200 years ago.
Iliana Morales was a faculty member at the conservatory for almost a decade, teaching Collaborative Piano to undergraduate students. The experience she gained in the process enabled her not only to enhance her teaching skills, but also to expand her chamber-music repertoire by working in collaboration with her violinist, cellist and flautist colleagues.
Conservatorio Profesional
Teresa Berganza (Madrid)
Conservatorio Profesional
Joaquin Turina (Madrid)
Iliana Morales with her piano pupils after a concert given in the auditorium of the Conservatorio Profesional Teresa Berganza (one of Spain’s secondary-level music schools).
Conservatorio Profesional
Joaquin Turina (Madrid)
Just a few months after arriving in Madrid, and having successfully gained membership of Spain’s national association of music/performing arts teachers, Iliana was given a warm welcome by the wonderful faculty of the Conservatorio Profesional Joaquín Turina.
Just a few months after arriving in Madrid, and having successfully gained membership of Spain’s national association of music/performing arts teachers, Iliana was given a warm welcome by the wonderful faculty of the Conservatorio Profesional Joaquín Turina.
Conservatorio Profesional Amaniel (Madrid)
The directorate, academic faculty and students of this institution all give enthusiastic support to initiatives to promote artistic activity both within and beyond its walls. Together with the Conde Duque Cultural Centre, the Conservatorio is the busiest and most well-known cultural hub in the city centre.
Some of Iliana Morales’s talented young pupils at a concert in the Víctor Espinós Library, in the Conde Duque Cultural Centre.
Conservatorio Profesional Amadeo Roldán (Havana)
Some of the greatest names in Cuban music have studied at this school since it opened over a century ago, including such leading figures as Nicolás Ruiz Espadero, José White, Harold Gramatges, Leo Brower and José Ardévol.
Iliana Morales studied at this historic conservatory in the heart of Havana from the age of eight, completing her secondary-level education there (with honours) eleven years later.
Later, after graduating from Havana’s Universidad de las Artes, she successfully competed for a teaching post at the Conservatorio Amadeo Roldán; the same school in whose wide corridors and spacious classrooms she had spent a happy childhood. These roots and memories are shared by generations of Cuban musicians, and the Conservatorio continues to nurture and train young people today. Many of its graduates have gone on to enjoy outstanding careers as performers and teachers in all four corners of the world.
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico)
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), whose main campus is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the largest universities in Latin America. Iliana Morales performed many times as both soloist and chamber musician in the various spaces of UNAM’s extraordinary Cultural Centre. She was also a member of staff of its Music Faculty for eight years, teaching in the Piano and Vocal departments.
Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas (Mexico)
Once upon a time, teachers from various conservatories in Cuba, Mexico and Europe, organised themselves under the leadership of a visionary director. Together they broke new ground in a place rich in ancestral traditions and stories ripe for discovery, not to mention surrounded by dense rainforest.
This pioneering initiative to bring arts education to Tuxtla Gutiérrez eventually became the Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas (UNICACH), with some of its early students going on to become its renowned teachers.
Iliana sees it as a privilege to have helped establish a piano department there, and has fond memories of travelling the vast local road network taking music and education to presentations, lectures and concerts throughout the wild and majestic landscape of Chiapas.
OTHER TEACHING ACTIVITIES
Iliana Morales teaching final-year students.
The Conservatorio Superior Padre Soler at El Escorial, where she gave a lecture on her career as a professional pianist.
An end-of-year photo taken with colleagues from the bassoon, violin and piano departments at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música in Madrid.