NYU Buenos Aires Professor Juan “Pollo” Raffo received one of the most respected awards for Instrumental Music and Fusion this past November 10th, 2015 from the Konex Foundation. This year was the fourth time the Konex Foundation has recognized artists of Popular Music for their activity and work over the past decade. Again, for the second time, Professor Raffo has receieved the award. In 1995 Juan “Pollo” Raffo, Pollo bieng his nickname since early adolescence, received his first Premio Konex Diploma of Merit in the category for Outstanding Jazz Group (1985-1995) with his band Monos con Navajas (Monkeys with Straight-Razors). This year the foundation granted Raffo the Merit diploma for instrumental and fusion music as an individual. Already honored by the prestigious merit diploma, Professor Raffo was also awarded the Premio Konex de Platino. The Platinum Konex Award distinguishes him from the others in his category.
Professor Raffo shared that the quintessence of the awards is the composition of the selection comitee. The judges are either previous award winners and active artists or journalists specialized in popular music. This structure encourages nominations and selections to avoid any possibility of contaminationg the awards and selections with alterior interests. One of the most sobering responses for Professor Raffo upon receiving the two awards was the personal congratulations he received from fellow musicians, composers, students, teachers, and former students from the music and academic community.
Composer, musician, pianist, and arranger of music; Professor Raffo realized his draw to teaching after studying under professors at the Berklee school of Music who were active musicians outside of the classroom and brought that dynamic into the classroom. Sindce the age of thirty he has been teaching in some shape or form, and since 2008 Professor Raffo has been facing the challenge of teaching music to non-music majors at NYU Buenos Aires.
In his course, Music of Latin America, the objective is to present students a point of view of a musician through the medium of music itself. This is undoubtly Professor Raffo´s forte. His classes can often be heard in the academic site– whether it be the class venturing to syncopate additonal beats over a 3/2 clave or picking up a rhythym to a traditional Argentine Chacarera.
He claims composition as a trade that is fifty percent intuition and fifty perent rationality. Moreover, he contends that this is conveyed in his classroom as his teaching style depends a lot on the pulse of the collective group of students. Part of the challenge with ecclectic groups that include Students from all over the globe, is finding the pulse. Fortunately, he believes that Music is a trade that is very accessible to even non-music majors which is synthesized in the many facets of his class and its participatory style, therefore acting as an efficient tool to finding the pulse.
The element of participation is key to Professor Raffo´s classes as students engage in the instruments by playing and listening. Not limited to only that, this semester students have written their own lyrics to popular Argentinian folklore music, Zamba. This semester the students also had the privilege to hear Juan “Pollo” Raffo perform live at Centro Cultural Kirchner.
Professor Raffo was quoted in the newspaper La Nación in 2013 in regards to his teaching, “I always say that a student is a colleague with less experiences.” Students at NYU Buenos Aires, as co-hosts to Juan “Pollo” Raffor in the classroom, are exposed to Latin American music in a way that challenges music to blossom in new ways and up its creativity as its spectators, at least the ones who have Professor Raffo for a semester, develop a potent awareness of Latin American Music.