Edward Pulgar
Encyclopedia
Early life and education
Born in CaracasCaracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
, Pulgar was trained through the National Youth Orchestra System in Venezuela (currently known as "El Sistema
El Sistema
El Sistema is a publicly financed voluntary sector music education program in Venezuela, originally called Social Action for Music. Its official name is Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, , and sometimes translated to English as...
"). He began musical studies at age eight in solfege
Solfege
In music, solfège is a pedagogical solmization technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable, called a solfège syllable...
, percussion and violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
; his teachers included Giuseppe Maiolino, Miroslaw Kulikowsky, and Józef Szatanek. At thirteen years old, he won the special prize in the Juan Bautista Plaza V National Violin Competition and several other competitions in Venezuela. He continued his studies in violin and orchestral conducting at the Conservatorio José Luis Paz of Maracaibo
Maracaibo
Maracaibo is a city and municipality located in northwestern Venezuela off the western coast of the Lake Maracaibo. It is the second-largest city in the country after the national capital Caracas and the capital of Zulia state...
, the Conservatorio Simón Bolívar, and the Latin-American Violin Academy under José Francisco del Castillo in Caracas. Pulgar earned an artist diploma from Duquesne University
Duquesne University
Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit is a private Catholic university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Duquesne first opened its doors as the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost in October 1878 with an enrollment of...
in Pittsburgh and recently a masters in music performance from Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
.
Career
Pulgar has played as a soloist with several symphonic orchestras in Venezuela, and at concert halls throughout South AmericaSouth America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, including Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex
Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex
The Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex , also known as Teresa Carreño Theater , is the most important theatre of Caracas and Venezuela, where performances include symphonic and popular concerts, opera, ballet and plays...
of Caracas, Centro de Arte Lía Bermúdez of Maracaibo, Panama's
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
National Theatre, Beethovensaal of Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
and Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, Teatro Colón of Bogotá
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
, and the PNC Recital Hall and Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh. At twenty years old, Pulgar made his debut as a conductor with the Fifth Symphony
Symphony No. 5 (Tchaikovsky)
The Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was composed between May and August 1888 and was first performed in St Petersburg at the Hall of Nobility on November 6 of that year with Tchaikovsky conducting. It is dedicated to Theodore Avé-Lallemant.-Structure:A typical...
by Tchaikovsky and the Zulia Symphony Orchestra. The same year he became concertmaster
Concertmaster
The concertmaster/mistress is the spalla or leader, of the first violin section of an orchestra. In the UK, the term commonly used is leader...
of the Zulia Symphony, and three years later he became a member of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
. He has also been a member of the Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...
Symphony Orchestra in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
and associate principal violin of the Wheeling
Wheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling is a city in Ohio and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia; it is the county seat of Ohio County. Wheeling is the principal city of the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area...
Symphony Orchestra in West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
.
Pulgar continues his work in solo and chamber music in the U.S. and Latin America, along with guest appearances as conductor. He is the Associate Concertmaster of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, in Tennessee.
Critical reviews
"Large and beautiful sonority, with impeccable intonation....""...The concerto was superbly executed by Edward Pulgar..."
"In the Saint-Saëns, Pulgar exploited with great freedom the possibilities of the violin..."
"The audience gave back [to Mr. Pulgar] the same stamp he sealed in both pieces of very high levels of technique, with much applause and a well-deserved ovation..."
"A soloist of admirable pedagogy..."
"[Mr.] Edward Pulgar draws music when he conducts"