Music against a post-Yolanda setting

WHILE others were rebuilding their lives, running relief kitchens and centers or continuing to appeal for help in behalf of the Bohol quake and super typhoon Yolanda survivors, musicians united, put music and its universal appeal in the service of a great cause.

Prof. Rayben Maigue leads the UP Jazz Ensemble

The UP Jazz Ensemble under Prof. Rayben Maigue opened, with swing-time hits, Ayala Museum's Season's Symphonies Concert Series, a fund-raiser for the Ayala Foundation’s disaster response and preparedness program.

In a commendable format, Lara Maigue narrated the story of jazz, instrument by instrument from a lonely cornet to the thicker texture of trumpets, clarinets and trombones combined. She sang staples like "Alright, Okay, You Win" and "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square." The older Maigue did the demo part, leading the ensemble through a varied repertoire that included Latin-Am rhumba, mambo and samba

Vocalist Lara Maigue

Despite a mic, Maigue's voice was thin for the upbeat "Orange Colored Sky," a tune Jacqui Magno could pull off with seeming lack of effort. She strove mightily but was overpowered by the over-enthusiastic percussionists, wind and brass sections. The band members capped the evening by punctuating "The Christmas Waltz" with a hearty chorus of "Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Nevertheless, the vocalist and the band looked like they were enjoying what they were doing as they showed how jazz, adaptable through each era since it began in southern US, is here to stay.

Roxy Modesto on the sax baritone

A beloved University of the Philippines tradition is the singing of Handel's glorious Messiah. But this year's was especially moving. The entire program, featuring the UP choirs and the UP Orchestra from different campuses,was dedicated to the students, teachers and staff of UP Tacloban and their families. The few who made it that evening were given a prolonged applause in the standing-room-only University Theater.

The audience was encouraged to go to the table of the UP Foundation Inc. during the intermission. The staff accepted cash and check donations, issuing receipts in the spirit of transparency and in behalf of the Typhoon Yolanda Relief Fund.

Premiered at this benefit concert was the dirge "Kilos, Iskolar" (music by Verne de la Pena and lyrics by Reuel M. Aguila) written for a chorus and soloist. Mary Jeane Eglosa, a Madrigal soprano who hails from Tacloban, led the UP choirs in a chant-like repetition of lyrics that speak of tears that wouldn't dry up in a time of disaster. In true UP fashion (raised clenched fists), the piece ended with this challenge: "Panahon ng pagbangon/ Panahon ng pagtindig/ Kilos, iskolar/ Dumaraing ang bayan."

Fitri Cerado opens Yolanda fund-raising concert, "Jammin' for Help, Thanking the World," with her interpretation of "One Voice."

Martin Nievera in a duet with Lea Salonga

The talk of the musical grapevine remains "Jamming for Help, Thanking the World," a Fullhouse Asia production to benefit #helpPH at Rockwell Tent, Makati. This was an example of classical music triumphing gloriously over pop music exemplars like Lea Salonga and Martin Nievera.

Cecile Licad rocks Rachmaninoff's Concert No. 2.

Cecile Licad, who had wanted to do something immediately for the Visayas when she heard news of the devastation, made known her fierce passion for this country and her music in her solo parts in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, even in the liquid sounds she produced as her fingers glided through the encore piece "Embraceable You."

Intense connection between Licad and Salonga who led the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra

The ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra under Gerard Salonga played in a way unheard of in the past. It has leveled up remarkably, becoming more than a pop orchestra that provides background music to showbiz stars.

In baseball parlance, the orchestra has, as one, stepped up to the plate and, with Licad, hit a triple homer. Music and sports may seem irreconcilable. But the vigor with which Salonga showed in leading an inspired orchestra that was in sync with Licad--this is the team-up one can never tire off every time the People's Pianist comes home.

Licad used a Steinway that was up for silent auction, proceeds also going to the Yolanda cause.

Wearing t-shirts and jeans, Licad and the others belied the mentality that one must be glamorously outfitted at a concert. They set the tone of sobriety and austerity in a post-calamity context. In their deportment they shamed some audience members who came dressed to kill and wearing their bling blings.

Arthur Espiritu also stepped up to the plate. He drove for hours a truck filled to the brim with relief goods. He and his wife, whose roots are in Samar, delivered these to the typhoon survivors in Llorente, a solidarity gesture that signified, "Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours!"

Christmas caroling quartet made up of tenors Nival and Espiritu, sopranos Meneses and Balajadia

In "Arthur Espiritu and Friends," again at Ayala Museum, he was the audience's darling. The friends included tenor Nomher Nival, sopranos Myramae Meneses and Kay Balajadia, and collaborating pianist Najib Ismail.

Whether singing a difficult, heart-breaker of a Neapolitan song like Cardillo's "Core 'ngrato" or popular fare like the Irish anthem "Danny Boy" or even Brodzsky's "Be My Love," he sounded, in a word, impeccable.

Espiritu

His soaring voice and generosity will be missed as he fulfills singing engagements abroad for six months.--Elizabeth Lolarga

Photos by Anna Leah Sarabia and Elizabeth Lolarga

Licad and Rach 2 on a Wednesday night

People's Pianist Cecile Licad is the soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra under Gerard Salonga

Edsa Shang East Wing: New home for orchestral music | Vera Files

Edsa Shang East Wing: New home for orchestral music | Vera Files

Encore, Cecile, Lisa and Lea!

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.

 

Tickets are available at all TicketWorld outlets. Check out www.ticketworld.com.ph or call 891-9999.

Exactly a week ago at this time

Gerard Salonga, conductor of the ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra, likens chamber music to a conversation among friends in an intimate setting. He says good chamber musicians are more likely good orchestra musicians, too.

The string quartet plays old Viennese melodies, evokes the sight of a lovely Rosemary and the moods of love, its joys, sorrows, all contained  in Fritz Kreisler's compositions. One supposes chamber music is mainly pakiramdaman where the soloist in a quartet must rise to the occasion. He/she has nowhere to hide unlike when he/she is just one among 16 players in an orchestra's violin section.

Salonga calls the viola "the ignored middle child" among the string instruments for not being as popular as the violin or the cello. But violist Albert Magcalas Jr. draws out not just sounds but  images of a man or woman praying, pleading with God, turning away from Him, then returning with more supplications, all from the modern-sounding first movement of William Walton's Viola Concerto in A Minor.

In an alcove of the Lopez Museum and Library at the Ortigas Center in Pasig, the notes of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are so thick and lush that the sounds seem to assume substance. They can almost be touched the same way the musicians are holding their instruments.

Gounod's Petite Symphonie for the flute, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns ends the afternoon's musical conversation. This audience member hopes that the performance will be the start of a series of chamber music in a museum setting. Like in the tertulia of the past, refreshments--Tully's coffee and "sioplets" or mini-siopaos--were served.         Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Giving her life to a moment

Cecile Licad receives thunderous applause from audience and fellow musicians at the June 29 concert "The Pianist's Pianist".  Photo courtesy of ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra and Jaypee Maristaza

 "Musicians are some of the most driven, courageous people on the face of the earth. They deal with more day-to-day rejection in one year than most people do in a lifetime. Every day, they face the financial challenge of living a freelance lifestyle, the disrespect of people who think they should get real jobs, and their own fear that they'll never work again. Every day, they have to ignore the possibility that the vision they have dedicated their lives to is a pipe dream. With every note, they stretch themselves, emotionally and physically, risking criticism and judgment. With every passing year, many of them watch as the other people their age achieve the predictable milestones of normal life - the car, the family, the house, the nest egg. Why? Because musicians are willing to give their entire lives to a moment - to that melody, that lyric, that chord, or that interpretation that will stir the audience's soul. Musicians are beings who have tasted life's nectar in that crystal moment when they poured out their creative spirit and touched another's heart. In that instant, they were as close to magic, God, and perfection as anyone could ever be. And in their own hearts, they know that to dedicate oneself to that moment is worth a thousand lifetimes."-David Ackert, Los Angeles Times