Oscar Carrescia, musician, owner of Carrescia’s Violin House

By Kristen Peterson

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Name: Oscar Carrescia

Work: Musician, teacher, conductor, owner of Carrescia’s Violin House

Age: 73

Education: Conservatorio Nacional Superior de Musica in Buenos Aires, Argentina

The store: Oscar Carrescia teaches violin, viola and guitar in the store he opened in 1977 in a strip mall on Vegas Valley Drive. Located next to a Bulgarian restaurant, the quiet store, filled with framed photographs, faded newspaper articles and concert programs from over the years, is also home of rehearsals for his nonprofit Youth Camerata Orchestra. Used and repaired violins line the wall. A small window in the back looks into a cluttered repair shop. Students come from schools throughout the valley, including the Las Vegas Academy. The students know Carrescia well. Some spend four or five years in lessons before joining the orchestra. After a few years in the orchestra, they leave for college while Carrescia continues nurturing the next group of musicians.

Career in music: He was born in Buenos Aires. His father was a military officer and the family traveled around Argentina when Oscar was a child. When he was living Misiones Province, he’d play street soccer and watch a violin player visit a piano teacher who lived across the street. He’d sit outside the window and listen to them play. At 9 years old Carrescia began taking lessons. By age 11 he knew he wanted a career in music. At 14 he joined a conservatory aspiring to be a soloist. His father had hoped Oscar would follow him into the military. “When he realized I was really serious, he supported me,” Carrescia says.

At 17 Carrescia auditioned and became a member of Orquestra Sinfonica Juvenil. The youth orchestra had been established by President Juan Peron, whom Carrescia met through his father. Students rehearsed five days a week and played a half-hour concert on the radio each week. Every month it performed in a local concert hall. At 22 Carrescia was playing with the National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina. That group performed for various guest conductors, including Igor Stravinsky, who conducted the musicians in “The Rite of Spring.”

Getting to Vegas: Carrescia toured South America and the United States with an ensemble of South American musicians. In Las Vegas they played the Sands and the Desert Inn. Carrescia stuck around. He thought he’d stay in Vegas for a year, make some money and then move back to Argentina. Instead, he spent the next 30 years performing with the Magic Violins strolling ensemble at the Sultan’s Table restaurant at the Dunes.

It was an easy life, he says. He performed four hours a day, then spent the rest of the time playing tennis and playing in a relief band for showroom orchestras, backing such Vegas headliners as Paul Anka, Tony Bennett and Marlene Dietrich. Eventually, he decided to teach lessons and open the store.

Four years ago he married Elena Kapustina, a cellist with the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

Youth Camerata: The orchestra, formed in 1986, was inspired by Carrescia’s experience in an Argentine youth orchestra. Youth Camerata performs four concerts a year at the Winchester Cultural Center. Guest soloists have included Luis Grinhauz, concert master of the Montreal Symphony; Ruben Gonzales, co-concert master of the Chicago Symphony; and Argentine pianist Lita Martinez.

He wishes the orchestra could help the students financially: “When the kids are 16, they all go to work for college. I’ve never had to work in anything other than music. I got the best teachers. The best time to practice. I have a good group. Imagine if I could rehearse with them five days a week.”

More music: Three years ago Carrescia formed Trio Buenos Aires to perform Latin American music. The group plays April 11 at Winchester Cultural Center. He has no plans to retire.

On classical music in Vegas: “It’s still growing. If you look for culture you’ll find it here. The program in the schools is one of the biggest in the United States. But at this time we should have a steady (full-time) orchestra because it’s a big city.”

Other interests: Golf, going to the gym.

Sticking around? “Yeah, but I would like to go to Buenos Aires more.”