Unrestrained Ranting in Behalf of a Pianist

We haven’t buried the heroic widow yet. Nor have we gotten over the proclamation of Carlo Caparas, Cecile Guidote Alvarez and ilk as National Artists. Suddenly my email inbox is filled with the diplomatic exchange of correspondence between pianist Cecile Buencamino Licad and certain Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) officials, outgoing and incoming.

The gist of this latest controversy, all reflecting how this country is run, is this: The CCP artistic program committee refused to honor Ms. Licad’s commitment to do a provincial outreach concert at Holy Angel University in Pampanga scheduled in the first week of September.

On what grounds, you ask?

The CCP, or Sentrong Pangkultura ng Pilipinas, from whose reclaimed land visual, musical, dramatic, cinematic, literary and other artists should ideally branch out and share their talents/skills/training with the rest of the regions and provinces scattered across our archipelago, claimed first or proprietary rights over Ms. Licad.

Raul Sunico, its newly appointed vice president and artistic director, a pianist in his own right, wrote that her planned Pampanga concert, would preempt her CCP performance with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) in mid-September, 15th and 16th to be specific.

Translation for this blogger: that ticket sales for her CCP concerts with visiting German cellist Alban Gerhardt and the PPO would be affected.

Hello, CCP public relations office, ticket sales, perhaps a third of it (and we’re being modest here), were made possible due to the almost one-man sales pitch freelance writer Pablo Tariman has been doing through his articles and music magazine since early June and through the unofficial texting brigade we started around that period. And we paid for our own tickets, take note. My four orchestra right tickets on those two nights I paid for from money earned as a freelance writer. I deposited my payment in the BPI Family account of the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines, the beneficiary of the Licad-Gerhardt-PPO concerts.

Ms. Licad is a thorough professional; she honors commitments and never makes promises that she can’t keep. More than this, she knows who and what she is, where she came from, how to acknowledge debts of gratitude and up to what point payback time is kept, her contributions to this benighted country, especially in deodorizing its bad image abroad.

In the latter, my encounters with some Fil-Ams and foreign creatures go something like this: “What, Cecile Licad is a Filipino? You have a world-class pianist, and she can afford to make New York City her base? I thought Filipina was synonymous with a maid in the US, Saudi and Europe? Sorry, ha, no offense meant.”

But here is Ms. Licad, who didn’t need to but had to explain herself to these idiots sitting in power at what it supposedly the country’s center of culture:

“I still don't believe my performances in the provinces will pre-empt the impact of the PPO concert. As earlier mentioned…, my provincial and two Metro Manila engagements last year didn't pre-empt the impact of the PPO concert; they actually sold out the CCP concert as reflected in the big revenues shared by the CCP and the Buencamino Foundation last year.

“Let me point out that I am doing the CCP program in the provinces for purely artistic reasons: this is my first performance of the Prokofiev C Major Concerto and I wanted to get to know this piece inside and out not just with technical rehearsals but with live audiences interacting with me. If I were doing Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff concertos, there is no need for provincial try-outs. I always try out new pieces many times in various places so I get the maximum result. That's the way I have worked in the last forty years of my career.

“I can see that the program committee's main consideration is the CCP investments and very little for my artistic needs; I noticed that all my points for doing provincial concerts were totally ignored.(italicization and emboldening of lines by blogger) If I may say so myself, I have given CCP and its audiences what they deserve in the last 40 years of my performing life. In this phase of my life and career, I expect no less from the CCP management.

“But your decision is well taken and I will honor my commitment. I am just sad that I cannot share my creative process with my countrymen in the provinces who have very little access to my performances. Since the CCP is financed by taxpayers' money not just in Metro Manila, I thought music lovers in the provinces need not be excluded from the CCP festivities on its 40th anniversary.”

Let’s ask ourselves: Is this any way for CCP officials to treat such a one as Ms. Licad? She is probably the best pianist of her generation internationally. Argentinian great Martha Argerich thinks so, so sure is she of Ms. Licad’s greatness which, I must add, is accompanied by humility and respect for authority.

By its gesture, the CCP has made it loud and clear that provincial engagements that come before a performer’s scheduled presentation on its stage cannot be done under its latest rules (rules conveniently dangled before Ms. Licad when no one, not even her, was aware of them).

I have just overheard an episode of the TV series “Scrubs.” One black woman character railed against a white woman who said something to the effect that classical music cannot be universally appreciated. The black woman said just because she (the black) wasn’t born in Vera Wang diapers doesn’t mean she can’t understand classical music.

Ms. Licad, I will say the words for you because you are a decent person, a darling of a musician, and everyone I know knows I'm neither of those, especially when sufficiently provoked: the current crop of CCP officials, supervisors and an underling, a certain Becca Jose, PPO manager, have not been toilet trained. That said, enjoy your visit to the motherland.

Frankie and Tessie in the Clair de Lune

Tuesday was one of those crazy-daisy days. But its staccato beat went andante when I ran into Frankie and Tessie Jose on the ground level of the Shangri-La Plaza. He had his cane. I had mine. He wore a transparent plastic eye patch over his right eye. The ever solicitous Tessie said, “Let have coffee,” our code over the years for “Let’s catch up.”

The Joses have always been Frankie and Tessie to me. They never made me feel that I had to address them with honorifics like “Sir” or “Ma’am,” “Mister” or “Missus.” We met when I was a college sophomore who’d occasionally pop in at the top floor of their Solidaridad Book Shop in Ermita, Manila, after I'd read a newspaper announcement about a visiting writer. The first time I climbed the stairs to that floor was when a Russian poet blew into town. On the way to the book store’s literary soiree, Rolando Tinio, who accompanied the visitor in a car, rapidly did an on-the-spot translation from English to Filipino of the poet’s work. With no rehearsal, Tinio read aloud the poem feelingly as only a poem ought to be read before an audience of about a dozen people.

Back to the Joses. Because Frankie and I were hobbling with our canes and a cataract had just been removed from his right eye, Tessie offered to join the Starbucks queue to get our orders—he for an espresso, me for a regular. His first question was: “What have you been writing?” I rolled my eyes and said, “Potboilers here and there.” He smiled, saying, “No matter, you’re still writing, and that’s good.”

“Any new poetry?” Frankie asked as a waiter brought our orders. I poured milk into my cup, averting my eyes when I answered, “A few, all fits and false starts.”

He told me to get a copy of the latest Free Press magazine. He read a poem, he wasn’t sure of the poet, by a certain Sunico. “You must be referring to Rayvi,” I said. “Raul is the pianist, the dean of the UST College of Music.”

Frankie got the little jug of remaining warm milk and poured the contents of his espresso paper cup into the jug, then re-poured the new mixture back into the cup. He was sure it was Raul the pianist, not Ramon the poet-book designer, who wrote the poem. Frankie praised the poem's innate musicality. It was like reading something by W.H. Auden, he added.

He has always watched out for rhyme, including interior rhyme, meter, alliteration, assonance, etc., in the poems that he reads. He is frustrated with a retired Ateneo professor’s books of poetry. I played Devil’s Advocate, saying that the prof is a musicologist. I told Frankie of once dropping by the prof’s modest Quezon City apartment in the 1980s, and hearing a Beethoven concerto playing full blast in his stereo.

“Nevertheless, he is tone deaf when it comes to his poems!” Frankie insisted.

He admires certain Filipino poets in English, prefacing his remarks with “But this is only as far as the boys are concerned.” Topping his list is Cirilo Bautista followed by Krip Yuson, Gemino Abad and “that fellow from Davao,” Frankie shook his head, trying to recall Ricky de Ungria’s name which I uttered.

“Don’t you read any of the guys who write in Filipino?” I asked.

Frankie’s answer was whenever he listened to Bienvenido Lumbera speak in Filipino, he would tell this other National Artist that he (Frankie) couldn’t understand what Dr. Lumbera was saying. “I tell him, how come when it’s Jun Cruz Reyes who’s talking, I get him? And Bien would only laugh.”

Frankie struggled with reading Lope K. Santos’ Banaag at Sikat but thoroughly enjoyed Lualhati Bautista’s Dekada ’70. He once asked a Liwayway editor in the ’60s or ’70s to compile the best short stories published in the magazine for a number of years , and he'd publish them.

Frankie was disappointed with the compilation submitted to him. “They all had O. Henry type of endings! Was that what Filipino writing all about?” he asked.
He continued, “You must remember, Babeth, that I arrived in Manila from the province in 1938 with no knowledge of Tagalog.” He learned his Tagalog along with way.

He hectored on other topics still close to literary shop talk until we drained our coffee. Tessie stepped out to buy load for her cell phone so she could call the driver. Before long, we said our goodbyes, and in my mind, as Frankie walked slowly with his cane toward the waiting car, was a memory of him taking young reporter Babeth in a midnight spin in his sedan with him at the wheel singing along to the soundtrack of The King and I.

Photo of F. Sionil Jose by JULIO SAMBAJON from Howie Severino’s blog