Following my inner compass

Editor's Note: Graduation season is a time when people often ask themselves: What's next? Edwin Montealegre once faced the same uncertainty. After studying at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, he chose to stay in Shanghai, where he built a career as a conductor and entrepreneur. We hope his journey inspires graduates — especially international students in China — to follow their inner compass and embrace new possibilities.

Edwin Montealegre, a Costa Rican music conductor who studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and chose to stay in Shanghai after graduation. [Photo provided by Edwin Montealegre]

Taking a leap of faith

In 2017, I finished my bachelor's degree in choral conducting at the National University of Costa Rica. At the beginning of 2018, I faced a simple but heavy question: what should I do with my life now? My professor, who had guided me for many years, was retiring, so I called her and asked honestly what she thought I should do. She suggested that I should go to China, to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

At that moment, Shanghai was almost unknown to me. I did not speak Mandarin, and my English was also very basic. Still, something inside me felt that I had to try. I arrived in Shanghai in August 2018 to begin my year of Chinese language study. Everything was new: the weather, the rhythm of the city, the language, and the atmosphere in the dormitory. On my first day, I heard another international student playing a Chinese flute. For me, that sound was like a welcome into a completely different musical world.

That year, I studied Mandarin and English at the same time, but I was also preparing myself musically. One day, I passed by the conducting department and heard some students playing the piano. They played so well, with a level of technique that honestly frightened me. I asked myself: "Edwin, what can you offer in a place with so much talent?"

That fear pushed me to work. I began to study piano every day and to prepare seriously for the master's program. Around that time, I came across an interview with Arthur Rubinstein. What stayed with me was the idea that technical ability is important, but what truly reaches the audience is the soul that the artist gives through the music. From that moment, I stopped worrying so much about whether others had more technique than I did. Technique matters, of course, but I understood that my responsibility was to find my own voice and share my own soul through music.

Growing through music

When I began my master's degree in conducting, one of the people who helped me the most was my professor, Cao Tongyi. He changed many aspects of the conducting technique I had brought with me. My movements were a little rigid, and he guided me toward a more fluid technique. I often compare it with Tai Chi, because the movement has to flow with the energy. A conductor cannot touch the music with the hands, sing it with the lips, or play it with the fingers. We conduct. We guide the energy, the direction, and the breath of the music.

Although I only had six months of in-person study in 2019 before the pandemic changed everything, those months were deeply productive. During that time, I also became the conductor of the Conservatory’s Voices of the World Choir, an experience that allowed me to connect with students from many different countries through music. Later, during the three years I spent in Costa Rica, I tried to remain active and connected with SHCM. In June 2020, together with classmates from The Voice of the World Choir and other friends, we created an online version of We Are the World, featuring students from around 14 countries. At a time when many of us were separated physically, the project became a bridge, uniting us through the power of music.