Photo: Julian Pozzi

The CARLOS POZZI story

Last updated: 04-23-2011

Carlos Pozzi, most people will tell you is a character, a man full of good humor, idiosyncrasies, and eccentricities: an artist, in short. In talking with him, one can discover surprising things: he's a vegetarian and one of the first yoga teachers in Richmond, having become certified in Yogaville in the late 80's. This helped him deepen his yoga practice and learn from its many healing benefits, such as strengthening of his immune system, diet and relaxation.

 

2009 did not begin well, but it ended shockingly bad. In the winter, he had fallen and torn a shoulder rotator cuff that made it painfully difficult for him to play the guitar. But by the next winter, that all seemed small compared to what he found out: his kidney had stopped working again, 25 years after his third and very successful transplant. Now he would have to go on dialysis again three times a week, for four to five hours a day. But only this time, the chances for a 4th kidney transplant were slim to none. This would be his reality from now on. Therefore, he decided it was time to retire from teaching, to leave the work he loves so dearly and that has sustained him throughout his life. As a surprising testament to his work ethic and passion, he discovered that he'd accrued over six months of sick days from his years teaching. Regardless of his health issues, he had rarely missed a day of work over all those years. This is a man who truly loved his work.

 

Now, his former guitar students - having heard of his retirement and his health problems - are organizing a benefit tribute concert for him on May 1st: to honor him and to show him that his love and passion have not been forgotten, but are still deeply cherished.

 

It is difficult to not be inspired when you imagine his situation: chronically ill, struggling with a new language and culture, far from friends or family, and in the midst of that, finding a way to connect to young people of all races, class and gender through teaching them how to play the classical guitar, not among the first instruments one thinks would appeal to American teens in high school.

 

Over his 35 years of a teaching career that began in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he developed a unique method that allowed his students to be both performing complex pieces of classical music in front of an audience in a little over six months, as well as begin to master sheet music reading. There's no gimmick: just an elegantly designed system that transcodes guitar music into a diagram of fingers and frets. It doesn't create a dependence on any system, but frees the student so they can glide right into music reading at the right moment. He teaches on a parabolic curve of "optimal" frustration, he says, "if you introduce music too soon, many students will get bored and quit. But if you introduced it too late, the student will be stuck and not progress forward."

 

Born in 1945 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Carlos Pozzi began playing classical guitar in his teens. He went on to study music pedagogy at a conservatory, and then was privately mentored by Violeta Gaínza and the exiled Austrian Eva Kantor (b. 1908), two of the most renown music professors in Buenos Aires at the time, who went on to co-write a seminal guitar method for children. Carlos then became a close disciple of Maestro Abel Carlevaro (1916–2001), the legendary Uruguayan guitarist and teacher who "established a new school of instrumental technique, incorporating a fresh approach to seating and playing the guitar, based on anatomical principles."

 

By his mid-twenties, Carlos had a flourishing career as a guitar teacher. With nearly 40 students, he filled his days from morning to night with classes, constantly perfecting his own guitar method.

 

Carlos was diagnosed in 1974 with “bilateral chronic glomerulonephritis”, a disease in which both his kidneys stopped working. He was 29 years old and his wife Nora was pregnant. In the summer, their son was born. At the beginning of 1975, he started dialysis. A few months later in June, he underwent his first transplant, the kidney his mother donated to him.

 

That year as well, a successful military coup begat a violent dictatorship that would kill over 30,000 Argentines over the next 6 years in the "Dirty War", and lead to the exile of many of Carlos contemporaries.

 

Perseverance, sacrifice, luck, struggle and miracles combined in the following years to give Carlos an extension on his life. Advances in the science of dialysis emerged just at the right time, allowing Carlos' mother to give him her kidney in 1975. But in 1981, Carlos rejected that kidney.

 

Again, a life or death scramble. Around the world, a few medical centers were leading the way in achieving successful organ transplants, especially with kidneys. Argentina's health care system did not regularly pay for foreign hospital to do procedures that could not be done in Argentina. It was a big struggle. In fact, the first, and probably the last and only time they did that. The only reason they did it was because Nora demonstrated to them that keeping Carlos in dialysis would cost them more money than the cost of getting a transplant.

 

Nora researched his nephrologist, Dr. Turin's suggestions for the best transplant units in the world that would accept him. He recommended three places: MCV, (Virginia’s first transplant center), the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and Cuba. They chose Virginia, where Dr. Gerry Mendez Picon had already treated other Argentinians and had worked with Dr. Hume, a pioneer in kidney transplants. He also spoke Spanish (he was from Spain), which was more than helpful.

 

But Carlos could not travel alone, and Nora would not leave their seven year old son Julian alone for six months. With expensive airfare and room and board to consider, they began the first of many fundraisers, auctioning off personal items and friends' services.

 

They landed in Virginia in January 1982, staying at small hotel in downtown Richmond before moving to the Ronald McDonald House on Monument Avenue where they would live for almost a year as they waited for the elusive kidney which did not arrive for almost two years. Unfortunately, that kidney was rejected and Carlos had to wait again for another two and half years for his third and final kidney.

 

Beginning in 1985, while waiting for a kidney and undergoing dialysis, Carlos Pozzi became the dynamic force behind the classical guitar program in the Richmond Public School. He had virtually no grasp of the English language when he first arrived in 1982 at the age of 37. Without a car, he rode everywhere on a bicycle, going from home to his classes and then to dialysis. He navigated the new culture with an equal amount of charm, naivete, and courage that has endeared him to a wide range of people in Richmond; people from different cultural, racial and religious affiliations, from the business community (the Ukrops family donated $5,000 to his guitar program), to political players to church leaders.

 

Over time, his determination to continue teaching the classical guitar and to work with Richmond's youth made him a mainstay at several of the prominent public schools for the gifted including Community and Open High, as well developing a successful program at more traditional schools like George Wythe. He also taught for some years at St. Christopher's school and at the RPS Arts and Humanities Center Guild Program. I only have a rough thumbnail grasp of all his teaching responsibilities.

 

At the high point of his career, his students seemed to be everywhere. As a guitar orchestra or ensemble, they played at the Governor's Mansion during the holidays, at the Public Library, and at various events around the city. They played during graduations and other ceremonies in the school system.

 

His students of all ethnicities, races and gender played the guitar repertory used at the college level, much beyond what the regular guitar teacher used in beginning guitar methods. Local politicians and administrators appreciated his students' many performances and celebrated the extraordinary musical achievements that an urban public education system offered.

 

Carlos is a bridge builder, a man not limited by the social distinctions like class or race or ethnicity. His love of his students, of music, and of teaching inspires those he meets. His presence conveys a love of the arts, of culture, and of hard work. He represents the resilience and pride of the immigrant who contributes as he embroiders himself into the fabric of American culture.

 

If you would like to donate to Carlos fund, please do so here. This money will go to support Carlos directly with his housing, medical bills and other expenses.