Sweet 60 birthday tribute to Jingjing with the smiling face

It was through the assignments given by Chato Garcellano, then travel editor of Philippine Daily Inquirer, that I got a chance to reconnect with Jingjing Romero. During the time Chato was travel ed, she'd send me off to media familiarization tours of Boracay, Palawan, Laguna, Batangas, with Jingjing as organizer and contact person.

Jingjing always impressed me with her warm, as against cold, professionalism. These tours were so efficiently organized. Not a minute was wasted. Not only did one get the main story with enough spillover materials for sidebars and private diary entries, one also got enough space and time to catch one's breath. Brava, Jingjing and her Stratos staff!

Jingjing Romero and a posse of media in Laguna: she is somewhere on the second row wearing a red blouse and a wide-brimmed hat.

What's more and what's better, Jingjing has a big heart, bigger than her fair, moon-shaped face that hasn't been visited by a frown or the lines and spots of age since the time I met her.

She showed this facet of herself many times in my life when some writers and I in Baguio City were reviving the Baguio Writers Group. One of our projects was a fund-raising jazz concert for a cause (e.g., the treatment and recovery of Napoleon Javier, a founding member of the Group who suffered and survived a major stroke, the holding of writing workshops for the city's young writers and also for retirees who'd like to leave a legacy, etc.).

Through her private donation along with those of other donors, the Baguio Writers Group, now under Luchie Maranan, has continued its mission of sharing writing expertise and opportunities with others.

When she's in the city up north, she calls and asks me to join her group for lunch or supper, even if I feel awkward because I'm not really a part of Baguio media in the sense of being a permanent resident there. When we part, she never fails to hand over a small gift, a bar of chocolate, an umbrella at one time (very useful during the monsoon months). This thoughtfulness I appreciate--it sets her leagues above other public relations practitioners (it's a profession, I agree, and a good one), but those others can appear user-friendly, sometimes.

For as long as you're connected to a major, even a minor, media outlet, they flit by you as though you're close and intimate and even loosely sign their notes, "With love." Jingjing is above insincerities like that. After all, mahigpit na ipinagbabawal ang plastic ngayon!

When music aficionado Pablo Tariman and I, as his assistant, embarked on the classical music education series billed as Intimate Concerts at Kiss the Cook Gourmet Restaurant, Jingjing was there with her gang called "Six and the City." Their presence at the initial concert of pianist Oliver Salonga helped to raise funds for the halfway house maintained for Aeta schoolchildren in Barangay Bayan-bayanan, Dinalupihan, Bataan, a project of former Audit Commissioner Evelyn San Buenaventura.

We saw Jingjing again, her son and another group at another intimate concert fund-raiser at the same venue, this time for the legal fees and other needs of Pablo's son-in-law, political prisoner Ericson Acosta, who was thrown in a Samar jail with trumped-up charges.

Another occasion, a recent one, when Jingjing responded to an SOS was when I referred film director Martin Masadao, also of Baguio City, to her. He and I asked her if she could request Seair to provide two seats for an under-aged member of the cast of Anac Ti Pating and a guardian, his lola, for a flight to and from Davao City.

This was in November of 2012 when the Sineng Pambansa awarding ceremonies were held in the southern city. Jingjing moved quickly to grant the request, and the boy, Raynon Ladia, went on to win the Best Actor trophy  and the film, the Grand Jury Prize.

When a gift is freely given, the returns are plentiful.

I predict that Jingjing's 60th year in this world and the additional grace years that will follow will be a time of great harvest not only in terms of material wealth (Who wants that alone? Not the Jingjing I know, I'm certain of that). Only someone like her whose faith in God is unwavering and who infects others with this faith deserves a period of grace such as this one tonight.

Thank you, Jingjing, for being a blessing to others.

--Babeth Lolarga

This piece serves as the blogger's testimonial to Ms. Elena "Jingjing" Romero of Stratos Inc. who is celebrating her 60th birthday tonight somewhere in Filinvest 2, Quezon City.

Nelson Mandela (or Whoever the Real Author Is & It Truly Is a She) & the Boys of Maginhawa Street

One of the last exercises done by the first batch of workshop participants of "Writing and Loving It," a summer workshop on creative living, was to translate from English to Filipino this oft-quoted inspirational and inspiring quotation that is attributed to Nelson Mandela.
The boys of that first batch who worked on their individual poems and essays throughout the six-day long workshop at the function room of Kiss the Cook Gourmet at 65 Maginhawa street, UP Village, Quezon City, had their closing program yesterday.
Today, this workshop facilitator and her able assistant, Nina Victoria Araos,a comparative lit major when she enters UP Diliman in June, take a break on Labor Day. The second batch of workshop participants meets from May 2 to 6 at Daisy Langenegger's Green Daisy at 20 Maginhawa st., same village in QC, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

_____________________________

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as
children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." --quotation often attributed to Nelson Mandela of South Africa

"Ang atin kakulangan ay hindi natin dapat katakutan bagkus ang katotohanang tayo ay may angking kapangyarihang maaring hindi lang natin nalalaman. Madalas nating kinakatakutan ang mga bagay na alam natin, hindi ang mga bagay na hindi natin alam. Tinatanong natin sa ating sarili, Sino ako para maging matalino, maganda o guwapo, magaling, pambihira? Pero bakit hindi? Ikaw ay anak ng Diyos. Ang iyong pagpapakumbaba o pagpapakamaliit ay hindi kailanman makakatulong. Ang iyong pagkukunwaring hindi ka magaling para lamang ang iyong kapwa ay hindi makaramdam ng kawalan ng katiyakan ay hindi rin mainam. Katulad ng mga bata, tayo ay ipinanganak upang magningning at lumiwanag. Tayo ang isinilang upang ipahayag ang kagalingan at kaluwalhatian ng Panginoon. At kapag pinahintulutan natin lumiwanag ang ating ilaw, lumiliwanag din ang ibang katulad natin. At kapag ating napalaya ang ating sarili mula sa ating mga takot, tayo rin ang nakakapagpalaya ng ating kapwa."--Translated by Milo Lofranco, Rudolf Songcayawon and Rex Tan

Photo of workshop participants at Kiss the Cook Gourmet's function room taken by NINA VICTORIA ARAOS
________________________
That quotation attributed to the great Mandela has this interesting history. The source is: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson

* "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles", Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3])

o The famous passage from her book is often erroneously attributed to the inaugural address of Nelson Mandela. About the misattribution Williamson said, "Several years ago, this paragraph from A Return to Love began popping up everywhere, attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural address. As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people."

o The poem was also included in the movie, "Invictus," about Nelson Mandela and the South African Rugby team.

o The film Akeelah and the Bee includes this quotation without citing its source. Some viewers have inferred that the source is W.E.B. Du Bois. There is a later scene in the movie in which Akeela reads a passage from The Souls of Black Folk written by Du Bois ("He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another”).

o The film Coach Carter includes a variation of this quote: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

o The Israeli bestseller "Badulina" by the author Gabi Nitzan opens with this quote, also attributing it to Nelson Mandela.

Photo of Mandela by BENNY GOOD

Brothers & Sisters of the Travelling Pants (a.k.a. Summer Workshop on Writing & Creative Living)

The third day of the six-day "Writing and Loving It: Summer Workshop on Creative Living" ended at 2 p.m. today with the boys (Rudolf, Rex and Milo) and gurlz (Nina and Babeth) inspired by a story-telling session with Mila D. Aguilar, poet, essayist, filmmaker, Web designer and professing servant of God and country.

To me, she remains the Mila who wrote such deeply moving poems as "A Comrade is as Precious as a Rice Seedling" and "Why Cage Pigeons?"

Mila, who lives not too far from the current workshop venue of Kiss the Cook Gourmet at 65 Maginhawa street, UP Village, Quezon City, informed the 12-year-old participant Milo that their names (Mila and Milo) mean "grace" in the Slavic languages of Eastern Europe.

Milo, who has been ribbed since Day One that his nickname may have been derived from an energy drink that is the color of his skin and which might explain his high energy level, grinned widely on learning another new thing today.

The workshop participants put into practice some interviewing techniques they had just learned this morning. By tomorrow, they will be able to write on the spot a full-length personality profile of Mila based on the sharing she did while she dug into a dessert of truffette and sipped a cup of cappuccino.

From my own notes, I found Mila's advice to young writers:

"If you're a writer or an artist, you have to have roots. Your roots are where you were born. There is no such thing as an international writer or artist. Every writer has a nation.... The thing he/she writes about, the thing he/she paints about is the culture of the nation. So you have to love your nation and express the soul of the nation. If you can do that, you can become a great writer; if you cannot, you'll be nowhere. Dostoyevsky was like that--he thoroughly knew his Russian culture, he expressed that culture in his works. So did Goethe. Shakespeare was like that, too. You must grasp your culture to become a great writer, a great artist.

"Your culture was not formed in and of itself. Somebody created it. It's a creation of Whom? Who created the nations? God creates not only individuals but nations. A nation exists for a purpose, God's purpose. You have to grasp God's purpose for the nation. There is a 'trialectical' relationship between the individual, the nation and God, and once you grasp that relationship, you'll become not only a great writer, a great artist, but an immortal one."

Like any true cultural worker, Mila espouses many causes, among them, organic farming, particularly shifting from miracle rice and the like which are
"hurting us and making us sick"; adoption of solar, hydroelectric and geothermal energy; Bangon Pilipinas, a political party put up for God and country, and so on.

Tomorrow, Thursday, our fourth day, the kids report back to the venue to write about their afternoon with Mila.

May there be more moments of grace in the next leg of "Writing and Loving It: Summer Workshop on Creative Living" scheduled May 2-7 at Daisy Langenegger's Green Daisy at 20 Maginhawa st., UP Village, Quezon City. Workshop fee of P4,000 covers snacks and lunch, writing and art materials, certificate of participation and encounters with other moments divine. Text or call the facilitator Babeth at 0916-242-1637 to reserve or confirm a slot.

Top photo shows Rex quizzing resource person Mila Aguilar. Lower photo shows the first workshop participants with Ms. Aguilar (seated center). From left are Nina Victoria Araos and Babeth Lolarga while standing (same order) are: Rudolf, Rex and Milo.

Slumming with Rene & Salvador on a Monday Afternoon

Does a poem have to make sense at all? Well, the Anon. who wrote about that cat and the fiddle and the cow jumping over the moon sure wasn't making sense in the logical, analytical sense. Yesterday, a group of "youngies," including this blogger, played with the stuff from the pockets, backpacks and bags of the three males in the group. From that point on, it was, shall I say, downhill and laughing all the way. Long live the surrealist movement!
____________

inside a red clearbook
that comes wrapped in a two-color scarf,
a folded iPhone
an apple-green cell phone
rings & says on loudspeaker mode,
"hand me my blue Kiss the Cook Gourmet receipt.
i left it on a thin vinyl cloth
spread over a square table."

an orange handkerchief
weeps & moans,
"where are my white 100-peso bills,
my 50-peso bill made of cloth cut from the Shroud of Turin?"

the single USB in Rene's pocket
dwells there with a leathery coin
& a dull coin purse
his clean wallet
lies in one of many manila envelopes
along with his new journal

as for salvador's brown Nokia cell phone
hanging from his necklace with a metallic dog tag
& pressed against his shiny t-shirt
it thinks it would rather be a thin sheet of intermediate pad paper
held by crisp human hands
attached to Gala's floral elbows

have you ever seen a man with a colorful wallet, ever?
but Rene & Salvador want nothing more than
a blue keychain with mini mer chairs
singing each to each

--Babeth Lolarga
April 26, 2011
Third version, 10:20 a.m.
Kiss the Cook Gourmet
Summer Workshop on Creative Writing & Living

Photo above shows Rene Magritte's "Son of Man"; below is Salvador Dali and a cub from the feline family

Summering by Writing, Drawing & Generally Laughing All the Way

"Writing and Loving It," a summer workshop on creative living, opens April 25 and runs till April 30, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Kiss the Cook Gourmet, 65 Maginhawa street, UP Village, Quezon City.

Kiss the Cook Gourmet is across from Holy Family School. It has a function room where the workshop will be held.
The workshop is open to children who can read, write and understand instructions, tweens, teens, young adults and the young at heart. There is a maximum of 20 slots, first come, first served.
Exercises will show writing is not an angst-filled thing nor is it the exclusive terrain of the gifted among us. The workshop aims to show that writing can be fun, funny and part of one's life, as easy as inhaling and exhaling if done with persistence and diligence.

Workshop facilitator is Babeth Lolarga, published poet, fictionist, painting hobbyist and high school creative writing teacher, who will be assisted by Nina Victoria Araos. Babeth has been conducting summer writing workshops since 1988 in various parts of the country.
She has twin degrees, a BA in journalism from UP Diliman and a bachelor of fine arts from UP Baguio. She helped revive the Baguio Writers Group and is a founding member of the Baguio Aquarelle Society.

Nina is a recent graduate of Diliman Preparatory School and incoming comparative literature major at UP Diliman. She is also a member of the Philippine team to this year's Southeast Asian Games.
Workshop fee covers venue rent, healthy snacks, lunch and materials.
The venue accepts credit cards (Visa and Mastercard). Call or text these numbers to reserve a slot: 0916-242-1637 or 0920-989-0227.

From May 2 to 7, the workshop moves to Green Daisy, owned by Daisy Langenegger, at 20 Maginhawa st., UP Village. The same facilitator and assistant will conduct the same workshop with another batch of 20 participants. The price will be the same, inclusive of morning snack, lunch and materials.
Each workshop will be capped with a closing program on the last day that includes giving of certificates of attendance and a short talk on eating healthy by the respective owners of Kiss the Cook Gourmet and Green Daisy. To reserve a slot for the Green Daisy workshop, text or call 0917-814-8262. Ms. Langenegger accepts checks in her name.
Bringing of own baon in the workshop is disallowed at both venues as the workshop organizers also aim to promote good nutrition among the young and young at heart.
Photos show (from the top): Kiss the Cook Gourmet logo, blogger's self-portrait, workshop assistant Nina Victoria Araos and Daisy Langenegger of Green Daisy.

Last 20 Seats Left for Tenor Lemuel de la Cruz's Intimate Concert in QC

Tenor Lemuel de la Cruz, pianist Mary Anne Espina and soprano Jade Riccio are the featured performers on March 27 at Kiss the Cook Gourmet (KTCG) in its fifth intimate concert with dinner at 6 p.m.

Only in his 40s, de la Cruz has just sung a tenor role in Magic Flute in Singapore and guested in the recent anniversary concert of the Singapore Lyric Opera. De la Cruz, who has sung the role of Gaston in the Singapore production of La Traviata, has played Pong in Turandot which he learned in less than three months. He was the mad scientist in Tales of Hoffman staged in Nice, France.

He graduated from the University of Santo Tomas with a Bachelor of Music degree under Maestra Salvacion Oppus Yniguez. He went to the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts and finished his professional diploma in Opera Studies with distinction. He has sung in numerous operas, including Basilio and Don Curzio in The Marriage of Figaro, Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, Gaston in La Traviata, Alfred in Die Fledermaus, Ruiz in Il Trovatore and Remendado in Carmen.

He was named one of the Outstanding Manilans in the Arts last year.

Meanwhile, Jose "Pete" Lacaba's Pilipino song translations of such favorites as "Memory" from the musical Cats and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" will have its first program debut at the KTCG concert.

Riccio has been tapped to sing Lacaba's translation of "Memory." A soloist of the internationally acclaimed UST Singers, she will sing a special duet with de la Cruz from Phantom of the Opera.

This event seeks to raise bail for a detained cultural worker and writer in Western Samar arrested for illegal possession of firearms.

Menu for Sunday's dinner concert:

Roasted Tomato Soup with Pesto Croutons
Tuscan Shrimp Salad
Pistachio Crusted Fish Fillets with Parsley Aioli
Cranberry Almond Couscous
Mushroom and Bell Pepper Ragout
Cardamom-spiced Panna Cotta with Honey

Call tel. no. 748-4152 or 0906-510-4270 for reservation or free ticket delivery.

Photo above shows Lemuel de la Cruz.

Baritone Andrew Fernando at Kiss the Cook Gourmet

Mark your calendars, particularly this date, the 13th of March, a Sunday. The Intimate Concert Series resumes at the restaurant/alternative art space Kiss the Cook Gourmet at 65 Maginhawa st., UP Village, Quezon City.

Featured artist for the evening concert that begins with a dinner first at 6 p.m.is internationally acclaimed baritone Andrew Fernando who was triumphant at the Philamlife Theater in a landmark concert with tenor Arthur Espiritu, soprano Rachelle Gerodias and the Manila Symphony Orchestra last year.

Fernando is the first Filipino first prize winner of the prestigious Loren L. Zachary National Vocal Competition in the United States and an alumnus of the world-renowned San Francisco Opera Merola Program.

He is also a prize winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions in the Los Angeles district and in the Pacific region, The Palm Springs Opera Vocal Competition, a recipient of the Opera Buffs Inc. scholarship grant and the Grand Prize winner in the Pasedena Opera Guild Vocal competition in 2004 and a grand finalist in the Licia Albanese Puccini International Vocal Competition held in New York in 2003. He was Opera Pacific’s resident baritone from 1999-2002 where he worked constantly with internationally acclaimed conductor John De Main.

His March 13 program includes Mozart’s "Se vuol ballare" (from Le Nozze di Figaro), Donizetti’s "Bella siccome un'angelo" (from Don Pasquale), "Kennst du das," , "Being Alive," from Little Women, "Some Enchanted Evening," "Impossible Dream," among others.

Concert comes with full-course dinner. Menu: Beefy mushroom and barley soup, Tropical Chicken and Mango Salad, Fish Fillet in Piripiri Sauce, Brown Rice and Corn Pilaf, Asparagus and Mushroom Saute, Watermelon, Melon and Honeydew with Honey Min

Call tel. 748-4152 or 0906-510-4270 for details. Kiss the Cook Gourmet (KTCTG), with tel. no. 434-3700, still has a few tickets left at their location.

This fourth concert is personally meaningful to me. It's a make-or-break thing. We are raising bail money for a cultural worker unjustly jailed for illegal possession of firearms in Western Samar.

KTCG's Waya Araos Wijangco has been sympathetic in lending her venue and arranging a full-course dinner at a loss in order to get more donations to the kitty. If there are enough kind hearts to enable us to pay the performing artists Andrew Fernando, his accompanying pianist Mary Anne Espina and the piano rental, the detainee has a chance to start afresh and be reunited with his family while the intimate concert series can hope to continue with its classical music outreach on a shoestring.

The concert organizers, Pablo Tariman and myself, are NGIs (non-profit individuals), and it would be great if we can increase our ranks so concerts for worthy causes can continue at KTCG and similar intimate venues where audience and artists can interact.

Photo shows Andrew "Drew" Fernando.

For the Love of the Classics

A person's life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through  the detours of art…or passionate work, those one or two images in the  presence of which his heart first opened."  --Albert Camus, French writer and Nobel laureate for literature

Monsieur Camus may as well add fools rush in where angels fear to  tread, especially on the subject of bringing the classics to small  venues, not 700-or 1,000-seater concert halls the proximity of which  is compromised at the hint of a thunderstorm and its twin,  Friday-night gridlock.

For Waya Araos, proprietor of Kiss the Cook Gourmet (KTCG), a  restaurant and alternative art space at 65 Maginhawa street, UP  Village, Quezon City, music writer Pablo Tariman of Music News &  Features and a hardy core of cultural volunteers, risking their  blouses and shirts is worth the effort, even if it defies  business-school tenets of cost effectiveness.

Tariman, who has presented pianist Cecile Licad, tenor Otoniel  Gonzaga, violinist Alexandro Tomescu, among others, in various venues  in Metro Manila and the provinces, may have been beaten financially in  some instances but is unbowed in espousing the classics.

He describes the risks involved:  "A small venue hardly raises any  income good enough to cover expenses from artists’ fees to poster and  program printing to piano rental. It’s hard to get sponsors in a small  venue as companies want a bigger exposure for their products. But when  tested as we did with Oliver Salonga last July 4, good food, good  music and good art on the walls make a superb combination. You feed  both body and soul."

It wasn't hard to get Araos's cooperation into opening her space for  the performing arts. She says, "My father (sculptor Jerry Araos)  raised us on classical music. He would get inspiration for his work  from Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Mozart and would delight us, actually  embarrass us when we were young, by dancing to Ravel's Bolero in front  of our friends. He'd sing along, not well, mind you, but with intense  feeling to Pavarotti, Carreras and Mario Lanza. The daily exposure to  the classics shaped what I am today. When I was presented with the  opportunity to present classical music at Kiss the Cook Gourmet, I  jumped at it."

Enthusiasm was infectious. Before Tariman and volunteers could think  of sponsors, the pragmatic way persons with a slight business sense  would think these things through, foremost on their minds was if the  ROS Music Center-owned Bösendorfer piano on which Salonga played in  his June 12 Philamlife concert would fit the restaurant's sliding  doors. That took care of itself.   Reality set in when costs were computed for the pianist's honorarium  in lieu of talent fee, the heavily discounted piano rental, ink for  printing out posters and other print paraphernalia, etc.

Reliable  cavalry riders came to the rescue in the persons of Aurora and Des  Bautista of Baguio, Dr. Andrea Enrile Dimayuga of Trinity Birth  Clinic, Maria Claudine M. Fernandez, Joy Buensalido, San Buenaventura  and Co., CPA, Quota International Club of Manila and friends in media  who helped drum up interest in the event. Visual artists Merci Dulawan  and Norman Chow came down from Baguio that day, each bearing a freshly  strung lei, for Salonga's matinee and evening performances.  The organizers acknowledged help from these individuals and groups.

Tariman says, "There is nothing like finding a patron who can cover  your expenses so you can concentrate on the artistic requirements of  your concert. In the end, standing ovations don’t translate into  income. Deficits tell you all planning should start with getting  sponsors and making good with ticket sales."  Tariman, awarded in June by the city of Manila the Patnubay ng  Sining at Kalinangan for makabagong pamamaraan (which must only mean  "innovative ways"), was happy with the results of the first two  intimate concerts.

After food expenses were deducted from Salonga concerts  and the balance for piano rent paid off, there was still more than  enough to turn over to the beneficiary, the Values Education and  Skills Training (VEST) Foundation that is working to keep Aeta  children in school in Bayan-bayanan, Dinalupihan, Bataan. The amount  of P12,000 generated is enough to feed more than 20 kids in their  dormitory for a month.

Aware that "risks are trials through which organizers live or die,"  his Music News & Features and KTCG went on with a voice-flute  spectacular, featuring soprano Camille Lopez Molina, flutist  Christopher Oracion and Mary Anne Espina who played on an upright  Bachstein piano in late July.  The organizers moved the concert from its original July 25 schedule  after a non-stop afternoon downpour stranded the performers and  some guests in their respective points of origin. This meant  cancellations by at least 30 confirmed guests (nuns celebrating an  anniversary) who could've filled up the restaurant. Araos was  philosophical, "Win some, lose some."

The show went on with the teacher in Lopez-Molina sharing English  translations of the German, French and Italian art songs in her  repertoire. She included the synopsis of the seemingly preposterous  plot of "La Wally," the only full-length opera that features an  avalanche in it, making mounting it a grand expense.  She also pointed out that far from being high-falutin', classical  music is akin to hearing "Ay! Kalisud" but coming from another continent.

Citing her first song, Schumann's "Widmung" (Dedication)  whose lyrics state "You my soul, you my heart, you my bliss, you my  pain...", she quipped, "It beats saying, 'For all the lovers out  there!'" 

Araos stepped out of her comfortable, tested KTCG menu, introducing a  new item, a very filling mixed seafood in saffron in vol-au- vent  shells to go with standards of rosemary chicken, garlic butter  vegetables, mango passion fruit jelly and lemongrass cooler.

She says, "The series has not yet been a big profit maker for the  restaurant, but it has its perks: the staff exclaiming over Mozart,  saying 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (from Mozart's Twelve Variations  on Ah! Vouz Derais Je, K. 265), alam ko pala yung classical music (I  know my classical music)', which makes my day; getting Linc Drilon and  Becky Demetillo to belt out 'As Time Goes By', 'Bridge Over Troubled  Water' and 'I'll Be Seeing You'; best of all, sitting in the  restaurant on a Sunday night, Chopin filling the air, and half the  people in the joint with tears in their eyes."

Tariman says, "Mounted in a small venue, the intimacy makes you feel  closer to the music and the artist. A small venue also translates into  lesser risk, a more manageable budget. Just limit your complimentary  tickets, or you will go home with your last underwear and sando! But  an ecstatic audience erases all that."

Childbirth instructor and art-music buff Mercy Fabros, a regular at  the concert series, says after listening to Lopez-Molina, Oracion and  Espina, especially when the soprano transformed into the flirty gypsy  in the "Carmen Fantasy,", "I never felt this way. It's like the orgasm  of old women!"  Sinag de Leon, who had a recent exhibit of paper cuts at the venue, spoke of  the "limitless possibilities of the universe," of finding a place that  not only satisfies food cravings but also yearnings of heart and mind.

With spirits riding high, the audience, whether a full house or  so intimate as to equal a royal command performance, may not just  applaud but rise to kiss both cook and impresario. They  fearlessly marched on to the next venture: The Baritone and Flute Spectacular featuring baritone Noel Azcona, star soloist of the UST Singers, flutist Oracion with pianist Mary Anne Espina.  The concert was held last night at  KTCG and featured  favorite baritone arias from Don Giovanni, Carmen and La Traviata  and excerpts from Broadway musicals Les Miserables and  South Pacific.  The evening was dedicated to the memory of the late baritone Gamaliel Viray.

The mission of promoting classical music education and the search to creatively sustain it continue.

Photos by Rebecca Dingkuhn shows Christopher Oracion and Camille Lopez Molina performing (top) and concert organizer Pablo Tariman lost in their music (below). 

Sinag Shines with Scissors and Paper

Starting at age seven, Sinag de Leon has been making paper cut-outs when she first discovered how it was done from a Childcraft volume.

Inspired by and fascinated with the designs of fragile paper cuts from China and Bulacan pastillas wrappers, she continues to relive, through her unique version of paper cuts, the rich variety of art that marked her childhood and growing up years. She has experimented with paper of different colors, textures, thicknesses and sizes, coming up with projects using her own designs for pencil holders, bookmarks, among other gift ideas. In 1995, she started making cards with “snowflake” paper cut designs, using art paper and card board and calling them Sinag Cards.

Just as there are no two snowflakes alike, Sinag’s paper cuts do not repeat themselves. After sharing her experience in making them with the Baguio community in 2007 and receiving a positive response, she seriously considered turning paper cuts into framed objects.

The process of cutting paper into shapes that she herself cannot predict the outcome of can take from five minutes for small sizes to an entire day for complicated, detailed ones. After she slowly and carefully opens the folded paper to prevent any tearing, she pastes the cut-out onto a background, still a tricky process. All throughout, she is guided by the thought of highlighting the paper’s beauty, for this particular show, paper from the Iloilo Producers’ Association.

Having worked with paper made in Japan and Thailand in past shows, for this current one, Sinag finds Philippine-made paper a joy to behold, handle and transform. She is doubly proud that she found it in a province where she partly traces her roots to.

“Sinalimbay,” Sinag’s second solo exhibit, gets its name from a combination of Tagalog and Ilonggo words whose common meaning has to do with gliding, swooping (like the movement of birds) and meeting the air from different directions.

In photo: Elaborate doesn't quite capture what Sinag did with this piece of paper
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"Sinalimbay" opens on July 16 at 5 p.m. at Kiss the Cook Gourmet with a live performance of Diwa de Leon's Hegalong Project at 65 Maginhawa street, UP Village, Quezon City. The exhibit runs for a month. Contact Kiss the Cook Gourmet for details at tel. 434-3700 or Sinag at +632-9208-431994

Oliver!

For the benefit of Vest Foundation which supports the education of Aeta school children in Barangay Bayan-bayanan, Dinalupihan, Bataan

Pianist Oliver Salonga at Kiss the Cook Gourmet

Many things happen when the moon is waxing. It is a good time to dream and set dreams in motion.

On Independence Day, like-minded people got together for twin events: the formal opening of Kiss the Cook Gourmet (KTCG), a restaurant, deli and alternative art space in one, and the inaugural exhibition "Moonlight and Water." The simultaneous solo shows feature the works of Norman Chow, Merci Dulawan, Baboo Mondoñedo and this, uhm...whatever.

As the party got underway, Ray Sison, principal flutist of the Manila Symphony Orchestra, observed that the venue was suitable for evenings of classical music. This after the warm reception for his interpretation of a short repertoire of the masters' music that suited the exhibit theme: Chopin's Nocturne, Mozart's A Little Night Music and Debussy's Clair de Lune with Saint Saens' The Swan from Carnival of the Animals for his encore.

The dreaming went on, with Mia Protacio, lighting designer by day, "poorest" patroness of the arts by afternoon and evening, giving her few centavos' worth--how young operatic singers needed exposure, too, in any venue, wherever there is an audience, new, old, in between still capable of being moved. She is a board member of the Philippine Opera Foundation.

By late evening, as original guests drifted off and a fresh bunch of diners came in, the dream took hold. Today, Ray texted: "It is a dream. But true." KTCG's Waya Araos texted: "Go for gold!" And Pablo Tariman, whose heroism in his classical music advocacy never wavered, announced that the tickets and flyers were on their way. And the event, you ask?

Oliver Salonga, two-time first prize winner of the National Music Competition for Young Artists (NAMCYA), will open KTCG's Intimate Concert Series with a piano recital on July 4 at 6 p.m. at the restaurant-cum-alternative art space (65 Maginhawa st., UP Village, Quezon City).

His program includes: Mozart's 12 Variations on Ah! Vouz Derai Je, K. 265 and Piano Sonata No. 10 in C Major, K.330, Chopin's Sonata No. 2 in B Flat Minor, Op. 35, and Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83.

A master of music in piano performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the guidance of 2001 Van Cliburn silver medalist, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Salonga was awarded the Sadie Zellen Piano Prize for his superior musical talent. Under Pompa-Baldi’s tutelage, he won the gold medal in the 2008 Joenju International Piano Competition in South Korea. He is on his summer break from studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music where he is an artist diploma candidate.

Salonga debuted with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Ruggero Barbieri. A critic wrote of his rendition of the Grieg concerto: “A dazzling pianist… The distinctive phrasing, the brio, the sense of drama made the piece sound fresh and yes, even contemporary.”

The pianist was a soloist in Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 in C Minor with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under George Ellis and got a standing ovation. He was soloist in Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.2 in A major with the Lynn University Philharmonia under the baton of Albert George Schram. He performed the same concerto with the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Rodel Colmenar and received rousing cheers.

The dinner concert, produced by KTCG, Bösendorfer and Music News & Features, will benefit Vest Foundation which, among other missions, aids the continued education of Aeta children in Barangay Bayan-bayanan, Dinalupihan, Bataan.

Limited seats of 60. Tickets at P1,200 each inclusive of dinner. For reservations, call 7484152, 3573811 or text 0906-510-4270.

Photo from Salonga's Facebook

'Moonlight and Water': A Quartet of Voices

In their first simultaneous solo exhibitions at this new alternative art space Kiss the Cook Gourmet, Norman Chow, Merci Javier Dulawan, Babeth Lolarga and Baboo Mondoñedo work on a theme that inspires them to be playful and reflective at the same time.

While watercolor in the hands of Mondoñedo and Dulawan effectively conveys the theme’s subtlety and frailty, Chow and Lolarga use the vivid, vibrant colors of their media to express themselves.

The watercolors, the acrylic works and the illustrations in dry media of pastels and color pencils were produced during a prolonged season of drought. The dry spell was outside, there in the visible world. In the visual artists’ interior lives, the flow of imaginings was strong.

They worked on varied surfaces in different locations (Baguio, Metro Manila, the Visayas), guided by images of water, with its implied power to renew life or produce a good harvest, and of the earth’s closest neighbor, with its own capacity to pull the tides and affect human emotions and states of mind.

Their own research enabled them to visualize images of moon and water. For example, the lizard, symbol of regeneration and almost a cliché in ethnic-inspired works, is said to appear in lowland provinces in the rare colors of pink and white. When it does, it is a harbinger of rain.

Some chose to interpret aphorisms in English and Filipino from “Baying at the Moon” to “Blue Moon” to “Suntok sa Buwan.” By celestial coincidence, a crescent moon was visible in parts of Southeast Asia one evening in mid-May this year. The planet Venus seemed to be held in the cup of the moon’s palm. This rare sight, in folklore, also signals good fortune.

Four persons face the vastness of the oceans and the heavens and humbly resize and reduce this on paper, canvas and board—a fortuitous beginning for all.


"Moonlight and Water" is the inaugural exhibit at the expanded Kiss the Cook Gourmet, a restaurant, delicatessen and gallery in one. The show, curated by Liwa Araos, opens on June 12 and runs till July 9. Kiss the Cook Gourmet, located at 65 Maginhawa street, UP Village, Quezon City, opens daily at 11 a.m.