Notre Dame alum Walt Szymanski, a 1972 graduate of Notre Dame and a world-renowned jazz composer and musician currently living in Ecuador, said today that fortunately he was not affected very much by the devastating earthquake that had hit his “adopted” country, which is located on the Pacific coast of South America.
“We felt and experienced the earthquake here in the Quito area, three rapid-succession quakes, and my house was really rocking,” he says. “But thankfully my architect incorporated new seismic technology into the structure, so nothing happened. But lots of terrible damage and casualties west of me. Thousands affected on the coast, unfortunately.”
On April 16, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 struck off Ecuador’s central Pacific coast. Strong aftershocks have been felt since then.
Currently a full-time resident of Quito, Ecuador, Szymanski has been serving as a professor of jazz studies at the University de San Francisco de Quito/IMC in Quito, Ecuador. He also writes and composes music for a varied clientele worldwide.
Quito is located a little more than 100 miles southeast of the epicenter of Saturday’s earthquake.
Last December, Szymanski was back in Detroit to play a special New Year’s Eve concert with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
He also said that he recently finished up a concerto/symphony for the Orquestra Sinfonica Nacional del Ecuador and will perform it with the symphony on May 19.
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Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper division enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower divisions enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three divisions are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." The Marist Fathers and Brothers sponsor NDPMA's Catholic identity and manages its educational program. Notre Dame is accredited by the National Association of Independent Schools, the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.