Barra Vieja, Acapulco, Gro., México P.C. 39936

WebSite http://www.greghenrywaters.com

Monday, May 31, 2000

Jesus Radilla Calderon Gobierno Del Estatdo de Guerrero

Secretaria de Fomento Turistico Centro International Acapulco

Acapulco, Gro, Mexico

Dear Jesus:

Well, we got a lot done in one day although I have been working on this project since last May. It guess it has been almost a year now when I think about it. Plus having been living here for seven months has taught me a lot about the culture and what is going on here.

That is a good point what is going on here when it comes to culture. To me the biggest problem here is the quality of the hotel musicians. They just do not have the education nor do they want to improve their education. I have offered to help them and they said they wanted help but do nothing all they care about if they have a job or not.

The newspaper, in the article about Jaime Glenn’s Show said I got the gold medal for my performance, but I am wondering why I am not working here in one of the hotels or something. It just does not make any sense to me. But as David said, "the hotel industry just cares about how many people are in the hotel rooms". This is why Cancun is doing better than Acapulco because they care about their clients more. I went into a few hotels and heard some of the bands playing by the pool it sounded awful. I could not believe it that they were getting paid to sound like that. The musicians union certainly does not care about quality, as my friend said, "they live in a box without any windows in it" . They exclude any competition by just excluding them.

New York City has the best entertainment in the world and they spend money on it and the people pay the price by buying high priced tickets. People come to Acapulco because of the sun and the weather not because of the entertainment. The balance here is way out of line and to me is a very sad commentary on the industry here for their lack of respect for their clients. But I am only an artist and producer I cannot make any final decisions about what goes on that is in the realm of politics. And politics usually use music to make the political leaders look good not for any musical values. I got the gold medal the other night because I have very high musical values.

Only through are combined effort can we improve the quality of international musical culture here in Acapulco.

I believe it is very important to connect the Philharmonic with the tourist industry. I believe my proposal to include the symphony is so important because they are the only real musician in Acapulco already bought and paid for. Why bring in too many people from the outside when you already have a world class professional organization especially the string players they are just wonderful.

The tourist have to know that they can come and listen to real classical music, plus the people who listen to classical music are usually the upper class and have lots of money. Why are not the hotels taking a interest in this it is because they have no idea what music is. I know from my experiences in dealing with hotels they are the most backward people when it comes to entertainment. We must educate them so that Acapulco can truly be a world class city like New York City is with three symphonies, two or three ballad companies, Broadway with over 40 theaters, the jazz capital of the world, but the people in NYC do not know this either, the Mayor has no idea what jazz is in NYC, another joke on musicians. Well our Mayor has cancer now because of his wrong thinking I believe. NYC has many different kinds of theater performances and many universities. They have about 10 professional music schools in NYC, but Acapulco does not have one professional school of music. I came here to start a Conservatory of Music, but it looks like I am being shut out by the musicians union anyway.

I am the Acapulco’s Philharmonic Composer, but the Conductor is waiting for funds before he can give me the OK to compose music for the record he is going to produce. If you could help push this along I and the orchestra would really appreciate it.

I also think there should be weekly jazz concerts in Acapulco which there is not any jazz in Acapulco in fact there are only about 4 jazz musicians in Acapulco as far as I know of any quality.

Also, there could be hotel shows with professional acts from the states that were popular in the 40 and 50’s which is high class Broadway entertainment that the cruise ships promote on all their cruises.

The Americans stopped coming here because you do not really provide them with any entertainment of quality when they can get good entertainment on a cruise ship. Why should they come to Acapulco when everything is in walking distance on a ship? Why should they come here when they have better entertainment in Miami for example?

My friend goes to Cancun because they treat him better there. He came to Acapulco once and will never come back again. He has been to Cancun three or four times. I believe it is the attitude of the people in the industry here is why you get this attitude.

You ask a waiter if a Canadian tips. He does not. You ask a waiter if an American does he does.

A caddie was telling me the other day, here in Barra Vieja, he works at Tres Vidas, he is waiting for the Americans to come back in December because they tip, 60 dollars for a round of golf.

Just a few thoughts on life in Acapulco and the Tourist and Entertainment industry here.

Sincerely, Greg Waters Artist of Music, Producer, Enternet Development, Performer Composer of Music