Cobo shares musical — and life — experience

By Timothy Pratt

Friday, May 4, 2001 | 8:58 a.m.

Guitarist Ricardo Cobo is an artist who knows that things, and people, and places, aren't always what they seem.

He knows the way to Carnegie Hall, and how to avoid being kidnapped in his native country of Colombia. He's lived in Hell's Kitchen in New York City, and had a mystical experience of sorts on Mount Zion, over the border in Utah.

The 39-year-old Cobo's musical and personal journey began as a teenager in Cali, Colombia, where he studied music in the city's only venue at the time, known only as el Conservatorio.

At 18 the guitarist left home to study abroad -- a rare decision, he admits, in a culture where "family and church tend to control most young people's destinies." But his father, though a doctor, supported his decision to study music. "He saw the passion I felt."

Cobo began what would become a distinguished academic career at Baltimore's Hopkins University -- "one of three or four classical guitar programs at the time," he noted.

More than two decades later he's played at least 1,000 concerts on most of the world's important stages, and settled down in Las Vegas a year and a half ago, where he's hoping to form a full-fledged guitar studies program at UNLV -- and where he's giving two rare concerts over the next week. Cobo is performing at the Sammy Davis Jr. Festival Plaza in Lorenzi Park on Saturday and at Winchester Community Center on May 10.

In a recent interview, he recalled his decision to move here. "I had been living in New York for 10 years, where I moved after finishing graduate music studies at Florida State University.

"Of course, New York is every classical musician's dream. But I soon found out it was more a myth," the musician said.

There, Cobo reached his goals of getting a manager, mounting a touring schedule of more than 150 concerts a year, and recording three compact discs -- including the children's record "Guitar Lullaby," recognized by the American Library Association and winner of a Parents' Choice Award.

Still, the city took its toll on him in other ways."I found that I was exhausted and had a low quality of life. I lived on 43rd and 9th, right off Times Square, and was burned out," he recalls.

The guitarist had several friends in Las Vegas, including local bandleader Mike Shane. He played some concerts in town, including as an unlikely opening act for a brassy salsa band from his hometown in Colombia. Then, it happened.

"One day, I headed straight up I-15 with some friends to Mount Zion. I took a deep breath and thought, 'This is where I want to be.' The sunset, the open space, everything seemed just right," he recalls.

Eighteen months later Cobo has begun a pilot program for guitar at UNLV, where he has students who have come from Los Angeles, New York and Montreal.

Darren Copeland, 31, is one of Cobo's native-Las Vegan students. "We're fortunate to have him here," he said. "I've been playing for 15 years, and he gives the best, richest lessons I've ever had. He's very passionate about sharing his music in every way, and has an endless repertoire."

The guitarist and maestro also has "at least a dozen students" from Colombia who have inquired about the UNLV program after seeing his website (ricardocobo.com). "But they always need a grant, and we just don't have the funds to give to them," he said.

This worries Cobo, but at the same time he's a firm believer that, "If you want something badly enough, you'll get it" -- as he himself has. Still, he's keenly aware of the lack of opportunities for young artists in Colombia, immersed in its fifth decade of civil war, including several rebel armies that fill their coffers through kidnapping.

"I used to play several concerts a year there, and felt a connection with the audience I couldn't get anywhere else. I could see hundreds of faces just like mine was decades ago, full of dreams," he said.

"But now it's gotten harder, the risks of getting kidnapped, or worse, are greater." Cobo has a brother who has been forced to move to Miami for fear of being kidnapped; he has a sister who insists on staying and working as a doctor in a clinic where a bomb exploded last month.

In these circumstances, the artist is hoping to give something back to his country by recording one of its forgotten, and rare, composers for guitar -- an elderly man who lives in the capital city of Bogota named Gentil Montana.

"The guy doesn't quite trust me yet, and sort of looks at me as a traitor for having left the country," Cobo said. "But I think he'll let me have his music soon enough."

Then he wants to arrange and record Montana's and other pieces in a studio he hopes to build in Las Vegas with one of his students, who is also a recording engineer. He is also starting to compose for the first time.

Meanwhile Cobo will continue to offer the internationally recognized technical mastery of his instrument, and his soulful approach to music, in concerts and classes in Las Vegas, a city he says he first saw as "Sodom and Gomorrah", but then found to be his personal Zion.

His concerts on Saturday and May 10 will feature traditional, romantic music of Brazil and Paraguay to jazzy, modern tangos from Argentina, and suggestions of funk and pop. The artist's compact discs will also be available.