Beatriz Abella is not your average college student.
A music business and music performance double major in her senior year, she performed solo at Carnegie Hall in April after winning second place in a nation-wide competition put on by the National League of Performing Arts, was one of six Southern Oregon University students to perform at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre, and the only freshman girl in SOU’s Chamber Choir to tour Germany and the Czech Republic.
Now she can add performing solo in the magnificent Teatro Juarez in Guanajuato, Mexico to that list.
When a group of students from Guanajuato University came to visit SOU last week, Abella showed them around town and gave them a tour of campus.
Along with the group was Isir Almaguer, a music professor and the artistic director at the University of Guanajuato and an accomplished pianist. Wanting to make them feel welcome, she invited them to one of her voice lessons.
After hearing Abella sing, Almaguer invited her to Guanajuato over spring break to do two concerts, both solo and in collaboration with Guanajuato music students. Abella was stunned.
“I found out about it Thursday,” she said. “I was just ‘oh my God’.”
“I didn’t have an agenda,” she said. “I wanted them to have a good time. I wanted them to have a good impression of SOU.”
“If I wasn’t nice to them and went out of my way to show them hospitality, this never would have happened,” she added.
Although she has yet to receive a formal invitation, Abella is looking forward to her upcoming performance.
“I don’t remember who said it, but I’ve always loved the quote “Luck favors the prepared mind,” and I think that applies to me very well,” she said.
