“This stems from the ego, vanity, feeling powerful, my ego was inflated”: Carlos Prado confesses before performing at the International Flute Festival

From October 10 to 14, the VIII International Festival of Perla del Pacífico Flutists will take place, in which great guests of the transverse flute will participate. This year it will have the presence of teachers Michel Bellavance (Switzerland), Katherine Kemler (USA), Miguel Ángel Villanueva (Mexico), Itzel Melgarejo (Mexico), Viviana Guzmán (Chile), Cate Hummel (USA). ), Carlos Prado (Ecuador) and Issac Ormaza (Ecuador) as guest conductor. In this meeting there will also be master classes, workshops and conferences for students and flutists.

The organizer of this festival is Leonardo León, first flute of the Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra (OSG), together with Minerva Quintana, two flute of the aforementioned orchestra. Since 2014 this musical event has not stopped, even during 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, it was carried out through digital presentations.

The flutist Carlos Prado resumes Latin jazz with his band for the concert ‘Origenes’

Carlos Prado and his band from Guayaquil performed on August 3 at the North American Ecuadorian Center, but this international festival represents his most notable return to the musical stages this year along with his band, made up of Glen Falcones (bass), Javier López (drums), Gustavo Blacio (percussion), Joel Icaza (piano) and Alejandro Cañote (percussion).

Before his most recent presentation at the CEN, Prado, recognized as the best flutist of jazz Latino from Ecuador, he was away from the public eye for various reasons, but especially because he decided to turn his life around, especially spiritually. In this interview he manages to get rid of himself and makes public what he had been suffering and confesses one or other very personal aspects. “I have totally enjoyed my life. I have always felt free. When you start in this profession, people call you ‘musician, bohemian, artist’ and it’s cool if you smoke a cigarette or have a drink or smoke anything. And you consume because people close to you offer it to you and it’s something normal, you have to drink, smoke… I liked to feel cool, to feel bohemian, to feel like an artist. He thought that if I did this I was an artist. That’s what people in this environment still believe.”

Have you been a womanizer?

I have not been a womanizer, but I have had many partners. Because it’s one thing to be a womanizer… I’ve been married twice. For example, I had a girlfriend whose mother told her: ‘That boy has a lot of history, he has had many girlfriends, he is a womanizer, he has been with many women.’ The girl told him: ‘Yes, he has been with many women, but what do you want him to do, he has always been single.’ My daughter Maura (11 years old) was born from my last marriage that lasted less than a year. She has the same name as my mom. She has lived in Germany with her mother -who is of German nationality- for five years. What I’m getting at is that I like to be well when I’m in a relationship.

“Peladito” (8 years old) began his romance with the transverse flute, guided by the soloist Libushe Hlavenka. Carlos Mauricio Prado Villamar was on the cover of EL UNIVERSO Magazine in September 2002. He was born on October 18, 1972.

What was Carlos like when he was 30 years old?

You know that at that time and until a few years ago I believed I was the king of the world, invincible. You eat the world, you feel strong, appearing on the cover of a publication of the most important newspaper in the country, he was a cool man, well… a musician, well-known, respected, many friends. It was a cool time. What has changed? Everything is not the same anymore. I remember that my best times were those of the bank holiday (1999) when many went to the m…, but I, on the other hand, was fine because I continued working on music, I always had a job. And dollarization (2000); I was perfect because I worked and got paid in dollars. My music and my career have always been thinking a lot about the commercial part. When I decided to be a musician it was when I was 20 or 21 years old. It was the time of the sucks, the farra, the bohemia. At that time we had a guitar club in a different house every day with my group of friends who were Fernando Gil, Lenin Idrovo, Pancho Pinoargotti; We were the four of us who had a party every day at a different girl’s house, because we also worked in a women’s school giving music classes or directing the choirs. But now that’s over, that now tires. I enjoyed that time in its time, but now everything is calmer. Now I get up at five in the morning, alone, without an alarm clock. I go for a walk 6 km a day, I go to the gym, I am not drinking anything (alcohol) anymore, I smoke cigarettes from time to time, but never in public. I can smile just because I feel good.

Prado is aware of the problem he had with alcohol. “It was always a strong issue in my life. You were cool if you had a drink and went on stage to play like that, during and after the gigs there was always a drink, ”she says and also tells that she had lost weight. “I had my ups and downs.” “I see myself in photos and say how could I be so ugly. I have always managed my life worrying about my image, being well dressed.

The piper, who never finished his music studies, says he read Dale Carnegie’s self-help books. Did he also go to support groups to overcome alcoholism?

“I searched several times and it did not work for me. I have a lot of affection for him, a lot of respect, and I am part of that family, of that group of people. I can go, sit down and listen to them because I like it, especially since almost all of them are good people. This is a disease. I saw myself in that question of saying what I do, I want to leave this hue…”.

Are you aware that you have a disease?

Of course. That is the first step, without recognizing that recovery is useless. Currently I am zero alcohol, clean, and I like it. I am enjoying my sobriety more and more.

Hit bottom?

Many times. I realized that what I was experiencing was not reality. This stems from the ego, vanity, from feeling powerful, my ego was inflated. I thought that this could not change, but I am turning 50 in October and I am aware that I have lost many valuable people, but also people who should have been removed from my life. My friends are counted, those of a lifetime, among them Fernando Gil, Lenin Idrovo, Pancho Hidalgo, my brother-in-law John Coello who has put up with me so much, like his wife, my sister Adelina. They have never failed me.

I mean, is this recovery being done alone?

Yes, because it never helped me to go to groups of alcoholics. I’m not saying they don’t work, in fact it has served a lot of people. What I do like is listening to them, but sometimes I would go but then I would go out and have a beer. I felt ashamed. There is one step, out of the twelve that are part of the recovery program, in which you have to recognize that there is a supreme being. I doubted the existence of God because there is so much injustice. I was saying if I have that existential problem of not believing in God how am I going to get out of this. I learned that without God I can’t. The Carlos of today is more secure, because when you are with this thing that you have this problem, it makes you an insecure man because you feel less, because you know you have a problem. I knew that he had problems with alcohol and that made me feel less in front of others.

Prado relates that his confidence manifested itself only when he had the flute in hand. “Before, it didn’t bother me that for an outing or an invitation they told me: ‘Hey, but don’t forget to bring the flute.’ But now it bothers me. Do you want me or the flute? I’m going to do like Patricia González (laughs) when they told her: ‘Patricia, come, but bring the guitar’ and she would answer: ‘Ok, I’m going to send you the guitar, but I’m not going’. In short, I feel that the flute is an extension of me, the flute is me. If I’m playing somewhere and they ask me to take a picture, I say: ‘But let me take out the flute.’ Without her, who am I?

“The flute has given me a comfortable life,” he confesses.

Have you saved? “No, but I have always lived well. I continue to live well, but now I have peace over everything. A person came into my life and spoke to me in a different way from God. My life motto has always been “Don’t do to another what you don’t want them to do to you”.

Will we see a renewed Carlos Prado at this flute festival?

Completely.

The general public will be able to enjoy the concerts of the Perla del Pacífico International Flute Festival from October 10 to 14 at the Centro Cívico Theater (av. Quito between Venezuela and El Oro).

For more information on workshops and conferences write to the email: festivalperladelpacifico@gmail.com.