Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Yndiana Montes Fogelquist. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Yndiana Montes Fogelquist, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?
Everybody Loves Maako is a 15-minute documentary about a classical violinist from Tokyo, Japan, who earned her master’s degree in Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. In the process, she learns to be an old-time music fiddler, mostly while she is secluded in her Boone cottage during the COVID-19 pandemic. I produced and directed this short film when I was a, graduate student in Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University. Maako and I were enrolled in the M.A. program at the same time.
The film has been shown in seven exhibitions and film festivals in Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina. Everybody Loves Maako was at The Rural Film Festival hosted by Virginia Tech’s Center for Rural Education and VT Engage. Dr. Amy Price Azano, Director of the Center for Rural Education said, “we were totally enamored by Maako’s story. It’s a powerful example of diversity and inclusion in our region.”
One of the highlights of Everybody Loves Maako was when the protagonist, Maako Shiratori, and I went to the Appalachian Studies Association’s Annual Conference in Cullowhee, NC in 2023. Western Carolina University hosted the conference, and both, Shiratori and I chaired a panel discussion “Diversity in Appalachian Old Time Music and Bluegrass Music.”
Artist Statement
Yndiana Montes will be the first Latina student to graduate from the Appalachian Studies MA program
“Diversity is important to me because I’m a naturalized American originally from Venezuela. As a result of my multicultural background, I have pursued a more inclusive approach to education at Appalachian State University. Even though Maako Shiratori and I are from very different cultural backgrounds and I am not a musician, I am in tune with her through our learned appreciation of Appalachian culture and its music. From the beginning, I admired not only her achievements but also for her way of relating to all people, whether they are students, faculty, musicians in general, or regular folks.”
Now, I’m working on my first documentary, which is also about music, diversity, and inclusion. Have you heard about Larry & Joe? This is a wonderful duo and I’m very excited about this project.
Do you need to know more about Appalachia? Can you look at Larry & Joe and specially Joe Troop on social media?
https://www.joetroop.com/
For this project, I’ve received a scholarship from the Arnold Shultz Fund (The IBMA Foundation).
Yndiana Montes Fogelquist, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Our mission is to help change the way people spend their money. We want people to spend more of their money with small businesses, mom-and-pops, independent artists and creatives rather than with giant, cookie-cutter corporations. We think one of the best ways to do that is to create content that puts these hard working folks at the center of interesting, thought-provoking content and conversations.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
I have been working disseminating sustainable tourism and tourism information for the Caribbean markets, Latin America, and the affluent Spanish speaking people in the United States for many years. Representing Caribbean Islands for these markets, I was able to travel, and document on video, television, radio and in print media, many aspects of the culture of the countries I visited. Life goes by and things changed. After three decades dedicated to this field, I had to close my company SoloCaribe Inc., last year. The pandemic hit us hard and changes in the tourism industry made us focus more on the state of North Carolina; that is where I have lived since 2009.
Now I have, not a new interest but a new endeavor: to document Appalachian culture (especially music) with my partner and husband, Dr. Jim Fogelquist. I met him at Appalachian State University when I was finishing my undergraduate degree in Sustainable Development. I had to take a Spanish class to complete the degree requirements and he became my professor. We started dating after I completed his class and we married three years ago.
Dr. Fogelquist was a mariachi, sharing a love for Mexican music with his brother Mark. After completing a Ph.D. in Spanish at Yale University, he decided to become a permanent member of Mariachi Uclatlán, a mariachi band formed by academics at UCLA that morphed into an iconic professional ensemble. He sang and played violin for 20 years (they accompanied Joan Baez, Linda Ronstadt, Vikki Carr, and Lola Beltrán, among others, and now he’s working on documenting the story of this band. This is why we travel so often to the Mexican state of Jalisco, where his brother Mark lives and teaches mariachi music. Mark is the first white American inducted into the Mariachi Hall of Fame at the Albuquerque Mariachi Spectacular , and Jim is working on a documentary about the band and building a social media platform to disseminate the group’s recordings and digitalized VHS videos. Jim is excited about planning a foundation for the mariachi, with Mark, and Mark’s daughter Monica, who is also a “mariachera.” I’m excited to spend more time in Ajijic (this is the name of the “pueblo mágico” where Mark lives) because I have been working in Mexico for decades (the OVC hired me more than 25 years ago to take HBO Latin America to film the spectacle of the descent of the serpent during the Equinox at Chichen Itza on the Mayan Peninsula, among others projects.
So Jim and I share a love for documenting music and musicians. In order to facilitate our projects, we have acquired a Sony FX3, which allows us to shoot high-quality video.
I was able to work and interview jazz and Latin Music luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, La Sonora Matancera, Carlos Santana, and more recently the big stars of reggae as I worked many years for Finn Partners and the Jamaica Tourism Board. I took many press trips to the Caribbean Islands of Aruba, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. I was also invited to the most renowned jazz festivals of the world.
Currently, we promote and attend such regional festivals and events as the Coltrane Jazz Festival, NC Folk Festival, We are both very fond of Appalachian music, something I was exposed to in the MA program in Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
I have been very lucky because my oldest son is a videographer, a professional photographer, a journalist, and an author. His name is Raúl Sojo Montes. He’s currently a lecturer in Spanish at UNC-Wilmington. In Venezuela, our professional equipment was heavy (we documented every place we went for the tourism corporations I worked for and to make DVDs for the media and for distribution). During those times we could take video assistants and the tourism boards covered the expenses. So, to make a long story short, in the past we were able to buy professional equipment and travel with a production team with the revenue I got from my company Solo Caribe Inc, Things have changed and today, I can no longer travel as I used to, as air tickets are so expensive. Now the advances in technology make it possible for us to do everything ourselves.We travel today. Our Sony FX3 fits in a backpack and using Adobe Premiere Pro we are able to edit our own videos.
In my university years at Appalachian State University, I won several grants and scholarships and I was able to produce my first documentary “Everybody Loves Maako”. Now that Jim and I have invested in better and lighter equipment each one of us has ambitious plans and are currently filming a lot for several projects.
Contact Info:
- Website: yndianamontes.com (there are links to various platforms here)
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/visitandonc (there’s a link tree here)
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YndianaMontesF/ https://www.facebook.com/VisiteNC. https://www.facebook.com/LatinRadioReggaejamaica
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yndianamontes
- Youtube: @yndianamontes @jimfogelquistmusic
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/yndianamontes
- Other: https://emblemsoftheanthropocene.weebly.com/leatherback-sea-turtle1.html?fbclid=IwZnRzaAMQOLhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHi8Qk_NHYqfIHY1D5tAL2HOVS1cx-UbfQ46FzKe7sELJgH2uoUSOLlWknn6b_aem_52QmstYP9uv7Ke9E8SPQZg https://shoresides.org/podcast/yndiana-montes-special/
