Grammy-nominated musician and educator attributes success to early start in local schools

By Natalie K Pollock

Staff Writer

Submitted Photos

Marcos Carreras has local roots but a far-reaching musical life. His talents and enthusiasm for music have brought him from West Hartford, where he grew up, to the Springfield Conservatory of the Arts, where he has been teaching for several years, to music collaborations far and wide. A recording artist as well, he currently lives with his wife and daughter in Farmington.

Carreras (left) is performing with Mister G, a longtime friend and singer-songwriter, on stage at the Austin City Limits.

Carreras’ list of accolaades is astounding. He has received six Grammy nominations and was selected as American Choral Director of the Year in 2014. DownBeat Magazine awarded him three times for directing and arranging, he was the winner of the Grinspoon Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Award, and is a member of the Recording Academy Class of 2025. He could read music and sing in church before he began reading books in school.

He currently works as a music educator and the director of music at the Springfield Conservatory. Before that, he served for 19 years as the coordinator of vocal music at the Kingswood Oxford School in West Hartford, and the executive and artistic director of the Children’s Chorus of Springfield.

Carreras and Ben Gundersheimer (right) also known as Mister G, met about eight years ago through a mutual musician friend. Mister G, whose Grammy is in the background, plays trumpet and guitar to his friend’s guitar and drumming.

“My music career started in West Hartford Public Schools with Whiting Lane elementary school. I had incredible teachers in the 1970’s. I played the trumpet at King Phillip Middle School and was in the Hall High choir where we sang for British jazz great Bob Stanley. Because of the incredible world-class education in West Hartford, I met alums with tremendous careers. Hall High was the first to offer jazz in their curriculum,” he said.

A graduate of the Hartt School at the University of Hartford, he recalled taking the Kodaly ear training program there. This method teaches music literacy according to the philosophy of Hungarian Zoltan Kodaly and serves as the foundation for vocal training.

“My music is a combination of nurture and nature. In Puerto Rico nature is a very strong (element). That combined with the right instructors helped to foster my career. I was also a drummer for Conard High School and in the Pop Jazz program at Hall High School that led to a Lincoln Center jazz residency,” he said.

Carreras leads the percussion sound set at a Texas festival.

He continued studying at the Hartt School and became a trustee there.

“I am lucky because I grew up in a town where I developed a passion for the arts, but that was on an equal footing with sports. I did not have to pay for anything. I was captain of the soccer team at Hall. All this set me up for success,” he added.

At every family gathering, he reported, someone would break out cuarto guitars, special to Puerto Rico, and everyone would sing and play, sometimes out to the street.

“Music unifies us when words fail. Music, rhythm, staying calm and communicating,” said Carreras.

For his first almost 20 years teaching at Kingswood-Oxford he was in training as a teacher and a musician. He also became involved in a big a cappella competition. Then he went on tour with Latin artists and began recording and performing at large festivals. After retiring at age 43, he went to work at the Conservatory.

His wife Lisa Carreras graduated from the University of Hartford as a social worker. His daughter Victoria enjoys video editing and is pursuing journalism at the University of Hartford. Her father often takes her along as a roadie at his live performances.

“The Conservatory is a magical place. It’s like LaGuardia High School in the movie ‘Fame.’ I built my music program from scratch, including all levels of band and choir. I’m also on the staff for the dance program,” Carreras said.

He equates the Springfield Conservatory to the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, which is a charter school, but his is a magnet school where 70 percent of the students are Hispanic.

“We work with a lot of Grammy artists. When I was an eighth grader at King Phillip I played with major artists. My students opened for Arturo Sandoval, the greatest trumpet artist ever. It’s a passion for me to bring artists into the school,” he said.

Marcos Carreras, who grew up in West Hartford schools, is an educator and recording artist with six Grammy nominations. He lives with his family in Farmington.

Carreras also tours across the country with Latin music artists like Ben Gundersheimer, known as Mister G.

“I’ve known Marcos for seven or eight years. We met through a mutual musician friend. I play the guitar, sometimes with Marcos, and he plays trumpet and drums. He has been my backup musician on tours all over the country like Austin City Limits in Austin, Texas, in Chicago and in Florida. In New England we have played at the Green River Festival in Greenfield, Massachusetts and at the Academy of Music Theater in Northampton,” Gundersheimer said.

The Academy is the first municipally owned theater and was founded by a tea and silk merchant in 1890.

“Marcos is known as a singer and percussionist. He brings so much joy and vitality to the stage and in the studio. His performance elevates what I do and it’s fun to bounce off the crowd together. Marcos already knew me. I went to his school,” he added.

Mister G is a Latin Grammy Award-winning artist, author and educator. A graduate of Amherst College and the recipient of the first songwriting scholarship given by the Berklee College of Music, he was inspired by his fourth-grade students to write songs that became his debut family album.

Now a decade later he has released 14 albums of multicultural albums and has won five Parents’ Choice Gold Awards.

A junior in high school, daughter Victoria is studying digital media at the University of Hartford, but she enjoys accompanying her father as a roadie at festivals, here at Austin City Limits last year.

He has also published four picture books based on his songs. His bilingual story Senorita Mariposa about the migration of the monarch butterfly has been used in classrooms.

Mister G also offers professional development workshops for teachers incorporating the arts. He is a widely distributed Jewish artist writing songs and books for children.

“I have a wonderful relationship with Marcos. We have collaborated for many years, and his students have joined us on stage,” Gundersheimer said.

“Music got me into college. It was hard work but if that’s all I could do, I would do it again. The next generation has no idea what is out there for them until I show them, just as music showed me. I love giving back,” Carreras said. WHL