Murder of a maestro
A brilliant and celebrated Scots musician. His bizarre and brutal death in Argentina. And a loving family torn apart by the chilling spectre of a secret double life
THEY look like a family without a care in the world – full of fun and completely devoted to each other. On the right of the picture, conductor Finlay Ferguson and his wife Silvina seem as much in love as they were the day they wed in Scotland 30 years earlier.
On the left are son and daughter Alister and Celina, brought up in a magical world of music and laughter, part Scottish and part Argentinian.
Yet, within a few brief years of this 2012 family celebration, the family was first fractured, then devastated by tragedy. Last week Mr Ferguson was found murdered in his apartment in Cordoba, Argentina, in bizarre circumstances
Prosecutors have revealed that a dumbbell was used to beat him to death. It is also suggested by the Argentinian press that his alleged killer was a young man who worked in the sex industry and that Mr Ferguson was found naked and bound to the bed.
Now, in the midst of their grief and lurid allegations concerning their Glasgow-born father’s private life, Mr Ferguson’s family have spoken exclusively to the Mail about their shattering loss and ‘the best father we could have wished for’.
Celina Ferguson also pays tribute to her father in a deeply moving farewell letter penned in the days after his death. In it, she pours out her heart, saying: ‘You were everything that matters in life. Maybe I’m not a musician, maybe I’m not a vegetarian and maybe I still don’t truly like whisky (I swear I’m going to work on that), but everything I am is thanks to you.’
SHE adds: ‘I’ll forever be your more devoted pupil. You have saved my life, literally and metaphorically, many, many times. I will always remember all the lessons you taught me, all the values you have embedded me with, all your kindness, all your love.’
Miss Ferguson describes music as her father’s ‘allconsuming passion’ and says the ‘love bond’ between her parents ‘was and will always be unique’.
But along with the gaping hole left in her family’s lives lies a mystery. What happened to this gifted Scot who was responsible for nurturing some of Argentina’s finest classical musical talent? How could the circumstances of his brutal demise be so dramatically at odds with the image of the joking, genial family man pictured at his wife’s 55th birthday party five years earlier?
For the moment, his family prefer to ignore what they describe as sensationalist speculation surrounding his death and rely only on the facts presented by the judicial authorities in Cordoba.
But many of those, too, are deeply disturbing. What is known from lead prosecutor Ruben Caro is that Mr Ferguson was murdered around ‘siesta time’ on Thursday, August 24.
He said: ‘There was a row and the suspect hit his victim hard in the face with the dumbbell. The victim’s body was found just before midnight last Thursday by friends of his.’
The prosecutor also revealed that a suspect, Alan Damian Torres, 19, was arrested within 24 hours of Mr Ferguson’s body being found and that his victim’s mobile phone and computer were found in his possession.
Those showed the musician had contacted Torres to arrange the visit he paid to his ground-floor flat in the Güemes district of Cordoba.
‘The bloodied murder weapon was found at the scene,’ said Mr Caro.
‘Robbery has been ruled out as a motive. We believe the suspect took his alleged victim’s phone and computer to cover his tracks because he knew they would show there had been contact between the two men and wanted to avoid his detection and detention.’
The disclosure that Mr Ferguson, 60, had invited into his home a young man variously described in the Argentinian press as a stripper and a male prostitute was an astonishing one for such a prominent and well respected figure in the Cordoba arts scene.
First and foremost, the Scot was regarded as a highly dedicated violin teacher who always went the extra mile for his pupils – and as the conductor of the Youth Academic Orchestra of the Libertador Theatre in Cordoba.
But his marriage to his Argentinian wife, flautist Silvina Lopez was also well known. Indeed, their musical lives had intertwined on many productions over the years.
At the end of his life, however, they were living apart – she with their two children, he in the apartment block where his body was found.
Their daughter declines to reveal details of what happened to their marriage.
She says: ‘He met my mother in Germany while they were studying because my mother is also a musician, a flute player, and she had gone to Cologne to study music as well.
‘They spent several years studying together as they both lived in the same building where they actually met and fell in love.’
But for this chance meeting, Mr Ferguson may well have returned to live in Scotland where, surely, he would have become a leading figure in the arts community.
HE was born in the Govan area of Glasgow in 1956 but his family settled later in Luss, on the shores of Loch Lomond.
His daughter said: ‘Music was his all-consuming passion. He was always very grateful with how the school system in Scotland was at the time, because when he was in secondary school he was able to devote practically all his time to studying music and at the end only attended history lessons just because he liked it.
‘He was a really curious and extremely intelligent person who liked to learn and read about everything.’
She added: ‘We know that he used to be a choir singer
and that he won an award for his Gaelic singing.’
Moving up to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Mr Ferguson was one of its most brilliant students, winning the academy’s Gold Medal and the scholarship which took him to Cologne.
The Scot and his Argentine love married at Helensburgh Registrar’s Office in 1983 and, months later, moved to her native land to spend the rest of their lives.
‘He had no problem settling down here with her,’ said Miss Ferguson. ‘Once they were here, he continued his long musical career which has resulted in an enormous legacy.
‘He immediately felt at home here, he quickly became fluent in the language – actually, later on, some people thought that, because of his accent, he could have been from some wee town not far from Cordoba – and became deeply interested and involved with our country’s political and social situation. But he always kept his love for Scotland and made sure to pass that on to us, his children.’
In Argentina, he became a giant of the classical music scene with a vast list of accolades.
Those included a professorship at the Suzuki School of Music in Cordoba, concertmaster of the Musica Ciutadana Orchestra of Cordoba, member of several chamber music ensembles including Musicas Argentinas, which toured Latin America, Spain and Germany, and, since 2005, founder and conductor of the Youth Academic Orchestra.
But his musical impact in his adoptive homeland is perhaps most widely felt through his former pupils.
His daughter said: ‘He transmitted his passion for teaching to lots of his students who are now themselves violin professors, carrying on the legacy of their maestro.’
For years, Mr Ferguson’s private life appeared no less fulfilled than his professional one. His daughter describes an upbringing fused with both Scottish and Argentinian sensibilities and brimming with fun and laughter.
She says in her farewell letter to him: ‘Thanks to you and Mummy I speak two languages, I have two lenses, I have two windows from where to look out into the world.’
YET, inevitably, the manner of her father’s death paints a less familyorientated picture, suggests demons and struggles which many of those close to him may not have known existed.
As Torres awaits questioning in Cordoba, the picture emerging from sources close to the investigation is that, in the weeks prior to his death, Mr Ferguson had struck up a friendship with a 23-year-old male student.
And, when his body was found, it was this student who told police about Torres.
Reports from Argentina suggest Mr Ferguson may have arranged to meet Torres via the WhatsApp instant messaging service on the day of his death.
Jorge Martinez, a reporter employed by ElDoce TV, said: ‘The music teacher and orchestra conductor was going to meet up with a stripper.
‘Evidence is already with the police that would prove that the teacher had contacted a young man at midday for about 50 minutes. Thus far, this is the firmest hypothesis the police and prosecutor acting in this case are following.’
As for the prosecutor himself, Mr Caro says only that the likely motive for the murderous attack ‘touched on the victim’s private life and it’s not something I want to go into’.
He added: ‘It’s fair to say that many local papers in Cordoba have focused on the idea that this was a crime of passion. We are still investigating if the visit the alleged killer made to Mr Ferguson’s home was a one-off or if they had known each other for some time.’
On social media, the tributes to the great maestro of Argentina’s second city proliferate.
One former student, Ilona Gálvez, writes: ‘Finlay dear, what a sadness all this is. My great admiration for your ability to transmit and train many young musicians in Cordoba over these years. Thank you for everything taught in my years at the academic orchestra. Today, the music of Cordoba is grieving.’
SHE adds: ‘We will always remember you, in every play and every note we touch, with the passion you asked for. ‘A great teacher, a great guy. Always engaged. Scottish and Cordobés at the same time. Atheist, vegetarian and partner. Musician and trainer. Thank you for everything, Maestro!’
It is, of course, within the Scotsman’s own family that the pain is most acute. His daughter says he returned to Scotland often to visit his mother Isabella, who died at 85 last year in Helensburgh, and other family members including his sister Fiona.
And both son and daughter cherish childhood memories of their visits to their father’s ‘old country’.
In her farewell letter to him, she writes: ‘I shall never forget your piggybacks, the swing you and Granda made for me, the wee wooden house that you built for us, your chopped eggs in a cup and your porridge, but also your ridiculous culinary inventions.’
She adds, heartbreakingly: ‘Once we are together again, sitting out there on the rings of Saturn or in my favourite Jupiter’s moon, we can have a wee dram, eat some shortbread and you can correct all the mistakes I have in this sad, sad letter. And I can once more comb your soft hair and fix your plait.
‘I love you forever and ever, Alister loves you forever and ever and Mummy loves you forever and ever.’
The bleak final scene of Finlay Ferguson’s life may linger in the minds of those who never knew him. But, as his daughter’s poignant farewell makes plain, it is for how he lived, not how he died, that his family will cherish his memory.