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| People's Pianist Cecile Licad, Ballerina ng Bayan Lisa Macuja-Elizalda and Tony awardee Lea Salonga in one concert |
The winner of last year’s Aliw Award for Best
Concert Collaboration, the concert "The Legends and the Classics Encore" returns to the stage on Oct. 12, Saturday, 8
p.m., and Oct. 13, Sunday, 5 p.m., at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Theater.
Presented by the Manila
Broadcasting Company and Ballet Manila, the concert will highlight individual
spot numbers, including medleys of Broadway hits and romantic standards from
Lea Salonga, immortal piano pieces from Cecile Licad and lyrical ballet numbers from
Lisa Macuja-Elizalde. What will make it even more unforgettable are the
triumvirate’s collaborative performances combining song, music and dance.
"The Legends and the Classics Encore" will also feature Ballet Manila, the ABS-CBN Philharmonic
Orchestra under Gerard Salonga and cellist Ed Pasamba.
Roxanne Lapus directs.
As concert producer, prima ballerina Macuja-Elizalde says the return
engagement was already in the planning minutes after the curtain
call of "The Legends and The Classics" in March last year.
She relates, “The resounding success of the event, the collaboration
onstage and the way the audience was making us bow and bow, not wanting the
evening to end was really contagious. At the back of my mind, I was already
mentally committing to a repeat performance while I was still an active
performer. The question was when? We were finally able to synch our
schedules for October 2013. So, it is finally happening again!”
Macuja-Elizalde, who is also artistic director of Ballet Manila, credits
lawyer Katrina Legarda for planting the seeds for staging the show. “She was
the first person to give me the idea of such a grand concert event. This kind
of casting coup was not my original idea. I am just so happy that we made it
happen!”
While the repeat concerts will essentially retain the flavor of the
original show, Macuja-Elizalde says that Licad’s decision to perform a
completely different repertoire will be an added treat.
Sharing a passion
for the performing arts, Salonga, Licad and Macuja-Elizalde all started young
and have achieved unparalleled heights in their respective careers.
Multi-awarded thespian and singer Salonga, who
began her career in musical theater at the age of seven, took the West End and
Broadway by storm with her starring role in
Miss Saigon for which she won a Tony Award and a Sir Laurence Olivier
Award.
A child prodigy, Licad made her debut
with a full orchestra when she was seven and launched her international career
as a piano virtuoso when she became the youngest gold medalist of the prestigious
Leventritt Competition at 19.
Macuja-Elizalde learned her first
ballet steps at eight and went on to hone her talent in Russia, becoming a
soloist of the legendary Kirov Ballet when she was barely out of her teens, the first foreigner to be invited to join the group.
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