Jianna Zamora clutches the baton with her right hand while simultaneously moving her arms in swift movements as she conducts Bowie’s guitar class. Zamora has been playing guitar since middle school, and now, in her senior year, she has become the teaching assistant for Bowie’s classical guitar class.
Zamora feels that the guitar program hasn’t gotten much attention or support from AISD. The guitar program at Bowie hasn’t had a set guitar teacher for the past two years after the last teacher quit. Randall Cantu, the AP music theory and piano teacher, went to Zamora and presented her with the opportunity to become the teaching assistant for the class.
Zamora was glad to have this opportunity to teach kids with the same passion as her. She has become a key piece in the classroom for these students, giving them the support they need to continue to learn and grow according to Cantu.
“When I think of Jianna, I think of an exemplary student who embodies what Bowie Fine Arts finds to be the epitome of pride and performance,” Cantu said. “Every time there has been an opportunity to contribute, she’s always had that incentive to want to help, and when those contributions come from a student, it’s unique and special.”
Zamora plays her guitar outside of school at Austin Classical Guitar, also known as ACG. ACG is a non-profit organization that teaches guitar in hopes of spreading love through music. Zamora has now been a part of ACG for three years, performing and conducting in their 19 and younger age groups called, Austin Classical Guitar Youth Orchestra (ACGYO).
“Once I joined ACG my sophomore year I saw how they changed people’s lives with music,” Zamora said. “That made me realize that playing guitar is what I want to do.”
ACG being a non-profit, attracts a lot of donors. One in particular, Carson McKowen, a recurring donor to ACG, sought Zamora out and gave her a new guitar from Bolzano, Italy.
“I was a mess and started crying when I found out I could have the guitar,” Zamora said. “It was nice, I never thought that something like that would happen to me.”
At ACG, Zamora met Joe Williams, the artistic director for Austin Classical Guitar and the conductor of the ACGYO for the past 10 years. Zamora sees Williams as her biggest role model and with this being Zamora’s first year conducting, she can take Williams’ teaching and implement what she has learned into what she is teaching at school. Williams has helped Zamora throughout her years at ACG, leading her through new concepts of conducting and helping her perfect the way she performs.
“The thing that is striking about Jianna is she loves performing,” Williams said. “That love allows her to apply herself, her skills, and develop her artistry.”
Zamora’s interest in guitar was first sparked when she looked up “girls that play guitar” on YouTube. She stumbled onto Ana Vidovic, a Croatian classical guitarist, and watched with awe as she played “La Catedral”. She dreamed of playing the guitar like her. She went from watching her through a screen to performing with her. She opened for Vidovic this August and has opened for 10 other sold-out shows with other renowned classical guitarists.
“I find out that I get to open for someone, then I spend time learning a song that I’m passionate about and then the result is I get to share that with people that want to listen to me,” Zamora said. “I just feel so deeply about music, and I hope I can make at least one person feel how I feel when I play it”.
She was also chosen to be one of three students at ACG to perform with Pepe Romero, possibly one of the most famous classical guitarists, according to Zamora. Romero is one of three sons of the Romero family who created the first guitar quartet. Over the next couple of months,she and the other members of the chosen quartet will practice together and then perform on stage with Romero in May for an ACG concert.
“I’m proud that she has learned, practiced, and love something enough to do it so beautifully and proficiently,” Jianna’s dad Zack Zamora said. “I feel like there are pieces of her shared in her musical performance that might not be expressed to me elsewhere. In a way, I feel like I can get to know Jianna better by appreciating her art.”
