Robert C. Ehlers
Robert C. Ehlers, Staff Environmental Engineer for Valero Energy Corporation, has for the last seven years managed environmental liability and ambient monitoring projects, consulted for resource recovery initiatives, and advised on federal regulatory affairs. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Stanford University and a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. Upon completion of his degrees, he worked at the nonprofit Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio for ten years. He is a local member of the Air & Waste Management Association and provides financial support to the Sunshine Cottage School for the Deaf.
Though Robert is an engineer by profession, he has always enjoyed literature, the visual and dramatic arts, and music as a balance to his more rational endeavors. In addition to being married to a concert pianist, Silvia Santinelli, he grew up listening to his mother, Elaine George Ehlers, perform organ recitals. This exposure to music, along with his family’s perseverance and patience, helped Robert overcome his severe hearing loss with communication skills that enabled him to attend public school and university despite doctors’ denial of that possibility. Aside from being a high-level tennis player, Robert has played at varying levels of proficiency the clarinet, piano, organ, guitar, and violin.
As an avid listener and collector of classical music, Robert has traveled nationwide in pursuit of quality performances of chamber music, solo pieces, and symphonic works, while enjoying more than sixty opera productions. As a Co-Founder, Board Member, and Artistic Advisor to COSA, and as a native Texan who has lived in San Antonio for most of his life, he hopes to further serve the San Antonio community, including the disabled, with his abiding esteem for the fine arts.
Silvia Santinelli-Ehlers, DMA
An ardent, multifaceted artist with an extensive musical trajectory, Silvia Santinelli began her piano studies in her native Mexico. At the age of seven, she was taken under the tutelage of pianist and composer Robert Avalon to study and begin her musical career in the United States. At the age of twelve, she made her debut as a soloist with the San Antonio Symphony playing the Beethoven C Major Piano Concerto. After winning countless piano competitions, Silvia, along with her sister pianist Silvana, appeared on Mexican National television, receiving numerous invitations to perform in and outside her country, and thus solidifying her successful international career.
Aside from many appearances in Mexico and the United States, Silvia’s performances have taken her to concert halls worldwide, including the Chopin International Music Festival in Marianske-Lazne, Czech Republic; the International Piano Festival at Valle di Blenio, Switzerland; the French International Piano Festival at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris; and the Rachmaninoff World Piano Seminar in Tambov, Russia, where she captivated audiences with her performance of Maurice Ravel’s La Valse. Hailed by the San Antonio Express News as a “musician of great depth”, she continues to dazzle audiences in concert, whether in solo, chamber, or duo performances throughout the U. S. and Latin America.
Highlights of her most recent and future engagements include performances at the Griffin Concert Hall, Colorado State University School of the Arts; the 85th season of the Tuesday Musical Club Artist Series in San Antonio, Texas; the Mexican Embassy to the United States Concert Series in Washington D.C.; and benefit concerts honoring the victims of hurricane Alex in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico.
With the Marjory Powel Zachary Keyboard Endowment from the University of Texas at San Antonio, Silvia earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree and a Master’s Degree in Piano Performance under Busoni winner Valeri Grokhovski. In 2000 she won the FONCA/CONACULTA Grant from her native country, and in 2002, a Teaching Assistantship from the University of Texas at Austin in order to pursue a Doctorate in Musical Arts with internationally acclaimed pianist Anton Nel.
In addition to receiving multiple awards and recognitions throughout her formative years, Silvia is the first prize winner of the Mexican National Piano Competition, the San Antonio Symphony Young Artist Award Competition, the MTNA Solo and Concerto Performance Competitions, the San Antonio Contemporary Piano Solo Competition for six consecutive years ; and prize winner in the Tuesday Musical Club Competition, the Corpus Christi International Concerto and Piano Solo Competition, and the Kingsville International Young Performers Competition. Silvia has been featured in various television and radio broadcasts, including KWEX (Univision), Televisa, Texas Public Radio, National Public Radio, and KMFA (Classically Austin), which featured her performance of the Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand with the University of Texas Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Kevin Noe.
Dr. Santinelli specializes in the piano repertoire of Spain, in particular, the music of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla. She continues to educate audiences in concert through her Dissertation Lecture Recital, in which she synthesizes the elements and compositional development of several works for solo piano as influenced by sociopolitical, cultural, and musical currents of de Falla’s time.
Aside from her concert career, Dr. Santinelli dedicates time to music education. She has taught at the University of Texas in Austin, Clavier-Werke School of Music, and Crownridge Music Academy. She has also imparted master classes at the Universidad Autonoma de Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, and at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. She keeps a small private studio in San Antonio, Texas, where she resides with her husband, Robert Ehlers.
Paul M. Montalvo
Paul M. Montalvo, born and raised in San Antonio, has worked as a firefighter for the City of San Antonio for over 15 years. He owes his love for classical music to his parents who introduced him to piano lessons at a young age. From that gift grew his strong desire to pursue the study of music in his mid-twenties.
Paul Received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music Composition from The University of Texas at San Antonio where he studied composition with Dr. James Balentine and Dr. David Heuser, with an Emphasis in Piano from Dr. Elisenda Fabregas. During and following the completion of his degree Paul studied conducting with Mr. Wayne Wyman and participated in Conducting Workshops in the Czech Republic, Miami, and San Francisco. His instructors included Mr. Larry Rachleff, Mr. Kirk Trevor, Mr. Johannes Schlaefli, and Mr. Tsung Yeh.
Paul continues to fervently study classical music, with a concentration in conducting. As a co-founder, Board Member, and the Artistic Director for COSA, Paul is eager to serve the community and help present classical music to a wider audience through education and performance.