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

The Cecile/Lisa/Lea show: Sa Sabado't Linggo na po sila!

When her hair was this short

Last year's publicity stills for the sold-out "The Legends and the Classics" are still in my files. I am trotting them out because there's scarcely a half month left before the same concert goes up again with a different program Oct. 12-13 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Theater.

The ballerina, the pianist and the singer

I remember that press conference for TLTC (shortcut for the concert's name) at The Mandarin Hotel in Makati. I like to be early so when I went into the revolving door and exited to the lobby, what I thought was a girling, in jeans, shirt, with a small backpack and hair cropped to just below her ears, called my name. It was Cecile Licad--she was on her way out to briefly have a smoke. She saw my mild shock--it was her hairdo that got me.

Later, before the organizers brought her to "the holding room" with the other soloists (Lisa Macuja Elizalde and Lea Salonga), I managed to ask what's with the hair? Is it a statement? In her husky voice Cecile answered that she'd gotten a little tired of the length and decided to cut it short. Nothing to it, that's what her shrug meant.

At the press con proper, she talked the least. Even in exclusive interviews with the other two greats of the performing arts, she also said the least. There was a full-length Q and A with the trio in a major broadsheet, and all I read of Cecile was her "Hahaha!" and a line or two. I think she's that way because she reserves the rest of her energy for her performances, whether she's playing as a chamber musician or as a soloist. 

After the ovations of the March 2012 TLTC, the audience spilled onto the CCP lobby, many lining up to have programs autographed by Lea who was seated on a chair by the grand stairway with a table before her. My daughter and niece were in the queue. I was standing beside them when I spotted Cecile, again in jeans and tee, makeup rubbed off her face, slipping quietly away. I called her and asked her to sign our program and a CD of hers. When people heard her name, the queue broke up and in seconds, a small enough mass of admirers was also calling out her name and asking for her signature--one had it on her right arm, like a tattoo. She said she wasn't washing that arm for the coming days.

My daughter, amazed at Cecile's casual get-up, said, "Nanay, she looked as though she was going to leave CCP in a jeep to go home!" Her aunt later told her, "She's a New Yorker so she's a commuter, she's used to getting around in a train." Of course in the Philippines, somebody lends her a car. 

But I recall that in the '80s, after I had interviewed her for Who magazine, the photographer (one of the Tapan brothers, I forget which one) brought Cecile to his studio at Harrison Plaza for the studio shots--she made the magazine's cover. After they wrapped up, he just gave her instructions on how to get back to her hotel (the Philippine Plaza). Apparently, from his account, she just crossed the street and walked all the way to the Plaza unescorted.

Cecile Licad

The People's Pianist is coming home again--that's the best news I've heard in a day full of news about floods and pocket wars. For now music is all I have.

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.

The legends & the classics March 17-18 at the Cultural Center

Living Legends

World-acclaimed pianist Cecile Licad will have another homecoming concert, this time with Lea Salonga and Lisa Macuja Elizalde along with the Filharmonika Orchestra under the baton of Gerard Salonga, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines main theater on Saturday, March 17, at 8 p.m.

Ms. Licad will play Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise with the Filharmonika orchestra and will do solo pieces namely Gottschalk’s Pasquinade, Bananiere and Souvenire d’ Andalouise. She will also play Saint-Saens The Swan with cellist Wilfredo Pasamba while prima ballerina Lisa Macuja Elizalde will interpret the piece in dance. In this special concert, Ms. Elizalde dances Minkus’s Paquita and excerpts from Romeo and Juliet; Lea Salonga sings Broadway favorites and the three of them will appear together in a special collaborative number.

After her CCP performance, Ms. Licad will have a solo recital at the Holy Angel University in Angeles City in Pampanga on March 22 (7:30 p.m.)and at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel in Cebu City on March 27 (7:30 p.m.).

Her solo program includes Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat major, Op. 61; Three Mazurkas Op.56. Andante spianato et grande polonaise brillante in E-flat major, Op. 22 and Liszt’s Miserere du "Trovatore" de Verdi – Paraphrase de Concert and Après une Lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata.

The few remaining seats at the CCP performance are at orchestra center and orchestra left sections at P7,000 each, limited parterre boxes tickets at P5,000 each, a few upper box seats at P3,000 each, balcony 2 Center seats at P2,000 and balcony 2 sides seats at P1,000.

Give these numbers of Music News Service a call at (02) 7484152 or 0906-510-4270 for free delivery of tickets to the CCP and Pampanga.

When you know the way to Santa Fe

Ceding this space again to friend PAT because of this spot of good news: the latest acclaim Cecile Licad reaped for her country. That's nothing new, of course, because she is nothing less than great wherever she performs.

But the delight was her new hairdo, or shall another friend Amadis term it a hair don't? It's a departure from what her audience, family and admirers are used to. Her shoulder-length tresses have made way for a radical cut. I told Pablo she looks youngish, he said she looks 16 again.

She will win a new audience, and this audience will crave for nothing less than great playing in the future, when she returns here for her one-night evening performance with fellow great dames Lisa Macuja-Elizalde and Lea Salonga, and a series of provincial engagements. The latter concerts are actually more exciting to watch--the audience is quite sincere and spontaneous in their appreciation, even from the first movement alone.

And there's another fan like us out there, who now doubles as correspondent. Doc Lara Halili has followed a number of Cecile's performances all over the States.

So apres vous then, Pabs.

______________________
Licad triumphs anew in Santa Fe

By Pablo A. Tariman

Pianist Cecile Licad -- playing as soloist of the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra under Thomas O’Connor-- practically reprised her Moscow triumph when she played Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15 at the 820-seater Lensic Performing Arts Center in this city to a rousing standing ovation last January 27.

It is the same piano concerto that got the Filipino pianist her first standing ovation in Moscow in April last year with the Russian State Orchestra.

The following day (January 28), she figured in a solo recital and got the same standing ovation from an audience earlier entranced by her Brahms concerto.

One of the few Filipinos in a predominantly American audience was Dr. Lara Halili, a certified Licad fan who filed a 6-day leave of absence from her hospital work to watch Cecile Licad.

“One of the rewards of leaving your work to watch a great Filipino pianist perform in a foreign land is that you are virtual witness to the fact that she is well-loved by audiences not just in her native country,” said Lara who couldn’t believe the awesome audience response.

Cecile Licad performing at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Licad admitted to her Filipino fan the Brahms concerto is one of the toughest in the repertoire. “Playing that is like climbing a mountain but you are instantly rewarded because the music is so profound,” she told Lara who watched the Licad concerts for two successive nights.

Lara noted that she could literally hear a pin drop in the concerto’s second movement with a super attentive audience stifling their coughing for that rare Licad magic.

“It was a great night,” added Lara. “I was particularly moved to tears by the concerto’s second movement.”

Cecile Licad with conductor Thomas O'Connor acknowledging awesome audience response.


Licad is headed for the Philippines next month before her Boston engagement to perform with Philippine Broadway star Lea Salonga and prima ballerina Lisa Macuja Elizalde with conductor Gerard Salonga and the Filharmonika orchestra on March 17, 2012 at the CCP main theater.

Meanwhile, the two latest CDs of Licad with celebrated German cellist Alban Gerhardt – Casals Encores and Faure cello Sonatas -- continue to receive rave notices.
British music Andrew Clements wrote that Alban Gerhardt's account of Fauré's two cello sonatas, both late works, repay careful listening. “Like the works themselves, his playing and that of the pianist Cecile Licad is full of subtleties, the half-tones and inflections that make the chamber music of Fauré's final decade so elusive and fragile. Nothing here is forced or made to conform; whether it's the urgent outpourings of the first movement of the D minor Sonata Op 109 or the utterly different slow movement of the G minor Op 117, the pacing seems perfectly natural, the colouring distinctive.”

Another British music critic, Jeoffrey Norris, wrote : “A gorgeous performance of the well-known Élégie comes as the first of the five ‘encores’ on this magnificent disc devoted for the most part to Fauré’s two cello sonatas, the D minor, composed in 1917, and the G minor from 1921. The passion and sorrowful rapture that Alban Gerhardt and Cecile Licad bring to the Élégie are complemented by the yearning ardour of a Romance, the virtuoso flutter and bustle of Papillon, the lyrical sweep of the Sérénade and the delicate lilt of the Sicilienne, which is also familiar in orchestral guise.

“This disc follows on from various other, highly distinguished recordings that Gerhardt has made for Hyperion of repertoire ranging from Alkan to Schnittke and Shostakovich, from Chopin to Prokofiev and Reger, and, most recently, of encores made famous by Pablo Casals (CDA67831), on which Gerhardt also teamed up with Licad. They make a particularly fine duo here, working emotionally in unison, sensing the music’s contours with like mind, breathing as one.”

Cecile Licad performs with Philippine Broadway star Lea Salonga and Filipino prima ballerina Lisa Macuja Elizalde on Saturday, March 17, at the CCP Main Theater.

Licad will have two solo performances in the provinces on March 22 at the Holy Angel University in Angeles City and March 27 in Cebu City. Her Pampanga and Cebu program features: Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat major, Op. 61; Three Mazurkas op.56;. Andante spianato et grande polonaise brillante in E-flat major, Op. 22 and Liszt’s .Miserere du "Trovatore" de Verdi – Paraphrase de Concert and Après une Lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata Call (02) 7484152 or 09065104270.

All photos by Dr. Lara Halili
Reposted with author's permission from Munting Nayon News Magazine

One night only, one night only