Brookside Baby
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Food from 4 Foodies
Whenever we get together, we being art teacher Norman Chow, watercolorist-writer Baboo Mondoñ
Poster design by Jennifer Cariñ
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Mameng's Sparkler
The late Odette A. and the irreverent gang of Los Enemigos used to call her "Mameng" during the twilight of the Marcos dictatorship. Mameng is still very much around, living to see her enemies buried. She cuts a striking figure at concert halls with her trademark beehive 'do, the French tips of her polished fingernails, the terno which she now wears some inches off the floor, almost the equivalent of cut-off jeans, and her brooch, selected for whatever occasion she attends. Well, we caught her wearing this at Sofya Gulyak's piano recital at Philamlife a few weeks ago. We overheard her boast of the three Bosendorfer pianos left behind in Malaca ñang Palace after her family fled. One was a wedding gift from Van Cliburn to her youngest daughter. She never learned of the fate of those pianos.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Queen Annie and her Prince Richard
Richard Merk, jazz singer, comic singing host and owner of Merk’s Bar and Bistro at Greenbelt 3, Ayala Center, Makati City, regards his diminutive mother,Annie Brazil, as still the undisputed Asian queen of jazz at age 77.
Known as the prince of jazz, Richard describes himself as Annie’s “huge son, huge fan.” He can’t believe that “out of millions of mothers out there, she became mine.”
While his approach to singing has been described by retired music reviewer Anna Leah Sarabia as “violent” in its attack with his inclination to belt out the lyrics, Annie’s is the opposite, “like a muted horn in Gershwin’s ‘It’s Wonderful,’ understated, free and easy with the melodies, almost like Ella Fitzgerald, except that Annie is almost coy, somehow demurely flirting with each song.”
At her second in a series of homecoming gigs at Merk’s (her last performance is on Oct. 20 with 9 p.m. show time), the deceivingly frail-looking septuagenarian can turn coquettish as she dished out, while seated, cross-legged, on a high stool, “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” “That’s All,” and “Boy from Ipanema.” She even gave old Tagalog ballads “Ikaw” and “Buhat” a jazzy treatment.
Unlike her 55-year-old son, she remembers the lyrics of each song and does not require a codigo (lyric sheet) to guide her.
That free and breezy interpretation of jazz favorites belies the pain of several losses in her life. Five of her eight children died in infancy, two from doctors’ negligence. She lost those five babies while detailed in different countries like Hong Kong and Thailand.
Those who survived were Richard, Rachel Anne, Ronnel and Ralph. She adopted Ralph when he was four days old and struck a deal with the Almighty to give her 20 more years of life so she could see him grow into adulthood and able to stand on his feet. He was able to finish his nursing course and vowed to take care of her in her old age.
Annie herself almost lost her life twice. The first was in 2005 when she couldn’t breathe nor take a step while playing mahjong in New Jersey (she used to average two to three packs of cigarettes a day until that stroke). In 2006, she suffered from pneumonia while in San Francisco, California. She then totally quit smoking.
Full of gratitude for her extended life, she said: “I have to be active. We all have to work our minds. What keeps me alive are God, Mama Mary, singing, my children, mahjong, my grandchildren in that order. They’re my therapy.”
In New York City, she built up a reputation as a regular jazz vocalist at Stagionale, an Italian restaurant-jazz joint on Bleecker Street in The Village. She was the only singer who sang there steadily for 12 years, she said.
“And in New York, that’s something,” she added. “Other musicians travel from place to place.”
Out-of-town customers sent her admiring notes. They told friends and family to visit the Big Apple to “look upAnnie and say hello for me.”
She never missed a performance because she discovered an effective remedy when she felt that she was coming down with a cold: hot coffee with brandy. Now she drinks that before and during a show because “it opens up my throat.”
Singing since age six, she went on to jam with such greats as Duke Ellington, Ellis Marsalis and Sarah Vaughan, sometimes serving as their front act. She called them all “excellent musicians, good jazz people” who taught herhow “to sing from the heart.”
She said Richard may have gotten his passion for songs from her, but lamented that he doesn’t listen when she gives him advice.
She has no favorite or signature song: “I like every song I sing. Singing is all about love and feeling what you sing as though it’s happening.”
There is one song, though, that she would rather hear than sing — “Windmills of Your Mind,” a roundabout composition whose lyrics can confuse even a professional.
Richard is unabashedly proud of his mom and has no compunction about rebuking audience members who continued to chat without lowering their voices while she sang.
At last week’s homecoming gig at Merk’s, which coincided with Richard’s birthday, he introduced Annie’s set the way a worthy son should: “Listen to my mother’s singing, my mother’s voice, my mother’s heart.”
In the middle of her crooning and scatting, he would tap a customer on the shoulder, point to her and whisper: “Ganda ng Mommy ko (My mother is beautiful)!”
When midnight struck and Richard officially turned 55, Annie changed the lyrics of the Birthday Song to “May Almighty bless you.”
After the applause died down, she sat with her admirers and shared the key to jazz singing. “Learn the song, memorize the lyrics, then sing it the way you want it,” Annie Brazil said.--Originally published by VERA Files
Photo by Kimi Fernandez
Known as the prince of jazz, Richard describes himself as Annie’s “huge son, huge fan.” He can’t believe that “out of millions of mothers out there, she became mine.”
While his approach to singing has been described by retired music reviewer Anna Leah Sarabia as “violent” in its attack with his inclination to belt out the lyrics, Annie’s is the opposite, “like a muted horn in Gershwin’s ‘It’s Wonderful,’ understated, free and easy with the melodies, almost like Ella Fitzgerald, except that Annie is almost coy, somehow demurely flirting with each song.”
At her second in a series of homecoming gigs at Merk’s (her last performance is on Oct. 20 with 9 p.m. show time), the deceivingly frail-looking septuagenarian can turn coquettish as she dished out, while seated, cross-legged, on a high stool, “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” “That’s All,” and “Boy from Ipanema.” She even gave old Tagalog ballads “Ikaw” and “Buhat” a jazzy treatment.
Unlike her 55-year-old son, she remembers the lyrics of each song and does not require a codigo (lyric sheet) to guide her.
That free and breezy interpretation of jazz favorites belies the pain of several losses in her life. Five of her eight children died in infancy, two from doctors’ negligence. She lost those five babies while detailed in different countries like Hong Kong and Thailand.
Those who survived were Richard, Rachel Anne, Ronnel and Ralph. She adopted Ralph when he was four days old and struck a deal with the Almighty to give her 20 more years of life so she could see him grow into adulthood and able to stand on his feet. He was able to finish his nursing course and vowed to take care of her in her old age.
Annie herself almost lost her life twice. The first was in 2005 when she couldn’t breathe nor take a step while playing mahjong in New Jersey (she used to average two to three packs of cigarettes a day until that stroke). In 2006, she suffered from pneumonia while in San Francisco, California. She then totally quit smoking.
Full of gratitude for her extended life, she said: “I have to be active. We all have to work our minds. What keeps me alive are God, Mama Mary, singing, my children, mahjong, my grandchildren in that order. They’re my therapy.”
In New York City, she built up a reputation as a regular jazz vocalist at Stagionale, an Italian restaurant-jazz joint on Bleecker Street in The Village. She was the only singer who sang there steadily for 12 years, she said.
“And in New York, that’s something,” she added. “Other musicians travel from place to place.”
Out-of-town customers sent her admiring notes. They told friends and family to visit the Big Apple to “look upAnnie and say hello for me.”
She never missed a performance because she discovered an effective remedy when she felt that she was coming down with a cold: hot coffee with brandy. Now she drinks that before and during a show because “it opens up my throat.”
Singing since age six, she went on to jam with such greats as Duke Ellington, Ellis Marsalis and Sarah Vaughan, sometimes serving as their front act. She called them all “excellent musicians, good jazz people” who taught herhow “to sing from the heart.”
She said Richard may have gotten his passion for songs from her, but lamented that he doesn’t listen when she gives him advice.
She has no favorite or signature song: “I like every song I sing. Singing is all about love and feeling what you sing as though it’s happening.”
There is one song, though, that she would rather hear than sing — “Windmills of Your Mind,” a roundabout composition whose lyrics can confuse even a professional.
Richard is unabashedly proud of his mom and has no compunction about rebuking audience members who continued to chat without lowering their voices while she sang.
At last week’s homecoming gig at Merk’s, which coincided with Richard’s birthday, he introduced Annie’s set the way a worthy son should: “Listen to my mother’s singing, my mother’s voice, my mother’s heart.”
In the middle of her crooning and scatting, he would tap a customer on the shoulder, point to her and whisper: “Ganda ng Mommy ko (My mother is beautiful)!”
When midnight struck and Richard officially turned 55, Annie changed the lyrics of the Birthday Song to “May Almighty bless you.”
Photo by Kimi Fernandez
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).
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.
The mission of promoting classical music education and the search to creatively sustain it continue.
Friday, October 22, 2010
How I Spent Thursday: The Sweetness of Doing Nothing
I remembered her as I watched Julia Roberts playing the writer Elizabeth Gilbert and transforming onscreen from that bored wife to a soul searcher to finally someone with enough self-love and inner balance who can again grab a chance at happiness in the movie still playing past its second -week run, Eat, Pray, Love.
My daughters and sisters saw it ahead of me, I again unwilling to be disappointed by the film translation of a favorite non-fiction book (I wasn't satisfied with Under the Tuscan Sun and felt Diane Lane wasn't a suitable Frances Mayes). But there was the prospect of seeing scenes of Rome, Naples, Mumbai and Bali, better than watching the National Geographic channel because this one's got a real-life plot.
As the movie took me from Italy to Asia, I lost the sound of the narrator's voice. My favorite parts, as my daughters rightly predicted, were the endless meals Liz takes to feed the hunger in her soul (the scene of her eating a plateful of spaghetti alone with an aria playing in the background--that was almost obscene, especially as the screen was covered with a shower of Parmesan cheese).
As Felipe, Liz's Brazilian lover in Bali where everyone has love affairs, Javier Bardem is more than substantial eye candy: he is, as Liz says, "a feminist husband" who stayed home and raised his children while his wife had her career; he is self-sufficient financially; he can cook; he can sail. So when Liz hesitated to accept his invitation to sail away to a deserted isle, I felt like reaching out to wring her neck.
There was a short scene that showed them in the local talipapa (flea market) where Felipe warned Liz against trying the durian because it "tastes like feet." This is such sacrilege to the real Felipe in my life. Not even 10 elephants can drag this durian-loving man to see Eat, Pray, Love if I tell him that detail. He will just dismiss this as a chick flick.
Bardem as Felipe and Roberts as Liz consummate their relationship in the movie Eat, Pray, Love.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Fare thee well, Gamaliel Viray
Actor Frances Makil Ignacio said her Tito Gamy would've liked that Newman photo to illustrate Mr. Tariman's tribute. She found a video of her late father, Elmo Makil, with Gamy making a brief appearance. I've posted that on my Facebook profile page as I'm not too Internet savvy enough to link it to this page.
My worry is if Gamy bothered to cut a record or CD. I recall that Aurelio Estanislao also prematurely left this world without a recording of his voice. When soprano Evelyn Mandac learned of this, she shook her head violently, ruing aloud,"A shame, a crying shame." And it is, when you think of how we are bombarded daily on TV by wannabe's and trying hards whose voices or what passes for them are amplified and tweaked by sound engineers. Let Gamy haunt them.
______________________________
By Pablo A. Tariman
I learned from baritone Nomer Son that his distinguished colleague, baritone Gamaliel Viray, had passed away Oct. 19. I have yet to know what he died of and I don’t know how old he was. I figure he was in his late 60s.
Nomer said that today, Oct. 21, Gamy’s remains will be at Sta. Isabel College where he was a voice teacher for many years. From what I know, he is survived by his actress-wife Amable Quiambao and son Ishmael (named after film director Ishmael Bernal).
In his lifetime, Gamy wasn’t just an opera singer. He was stage and film actor and turned to teaching when opera and concert productions became rare as hen’s teeth, so to speak.
In 1979 when the Manila Metropolitan Theater had more opera productions than CCP, he was Zurga in Bizet’s Pearl Fishers with the Leila of soprano Eleanor Calbes. In 1990, he was Germont in the controversial production of La Traviata at the CCP with National Artist for Theater Rolando Tinio directing. What caused the controversy?
Tinio, who wanted to introduce the opera to the new generation of opera lovers, translated the opera in Pilipino and localized it by changing the setting of the opera from Paris to Binondo.
I wrote of Gamy in that opera in the July 8, 1990 issue of the Daily Globe thus: “Next to the Violetta of Donna Maria Zapola, the Germont of Gamaliel Viray registered with such authority that echoed in his singing.. He once again showed that confident singing he earlier revealed as Zurga in the 1981 production of Pearl Fishers. Tinio’s translation of Di provenza il mar sang with such fervor by Viray is another good argument in favor of opera translation.”
A finalist in the Concours International de Chant in France and the Francisco Vinas Vocal Competition in Spain, Gamy was also Marcello in the CCP production of La Boheme with the Rodolfo of tenor Harry Theyard who is identified with the Metropolitan Opera of New York. He was also Papagueno in the CCP production of Magic Flute under Sarah Caldwell and Count Almaviva in Marriage of Figaro also mounted by the then newly-born but short-lived Opera Companyof the Philippines.. He made his American operatic debut with the Opera Company of Boston as Burundai in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Invisible City of Kitezh.
The fact is Gamy commuted between opera and musical theater. He was in Aida, Carmen, La Gioconda, Turandot and Cavalleria Rusticana, among others but he was also appearing in musicals such as Man of La Mancha, Merry Wives of Windsor, Cats (excerpts) including the zarzuela, Walang Sugat.
But as he commuted between opera and theater (mainly with Teatro Pilipino, Tanghalang Pilipino and Bulwagang Gantimpala), Gamy also found time to be character-actor in many action, drama and comedy films.
He was the senator in Abaya’s Baby Tsina, the mayor in Hinahanap-Hanap Kita, the congressman in Kahit Pader Gigibain Ko! ", the college dean in Bakit May Kahapon Pa?, the big boss in Madrasta, and the lawyer in Kahit Kunting Pagtingin Part II, the punctilious judge in the FPJ blockbuster Kung Puno Na Ang Salop Part III, among others.
I recall one Friday night in the 90s when Gamy was interpreting Schubert songs in Paco Park while demonstrators clashed with police officers along Taft Ave. Knowing that traffic was hard to beat after the commotion at Taft Ave., we (with his wife, Ama and pianist Cecile Roxas) ended up in a M.H. del Pilar watering hole where customers were no opera buffs and people were into karaoke singing.
Recognizing the baritone, one customer asked Gamy to sing. After a night of Schubert and Verdi at Paco Park, he ended up singing “What We Did Last Summer” and “Around the World.”
“I can manage with this instant karaoke singing,” said Viray then.
In Boston Opera where he debuted in a Rimsky-Korsakov opera directed by Sarah Caldwell, there were two contrasting shows in the Boston theater. Inside, he was singing a Rimsky-Korsakov aria while outside, anti-dictatorship demonstrators were chanting about poverty in the Philippines.
I never had the nerve to ask him why his singing was hounded by demonstrations from Boston to Paco Park and Liwasang Bonifacio.
It was also Gamy who "leaked" to me the well-kept-secret that the late Fernando Poe, Jr. was in fact hooked on opera.
While playing some Traviata music on the set of an action film, Viray was approached by the The King if the music was from Traviata.
“Yes,”answered a surprised baritone.
Then FPJ told Viray his little known secret: “Did you know that I took voice lessons from bass baritone Jose Mossessgeld Santiago-Font upon the prodding of my father?”
Santiago-Font happened to be the first Filipino bass baritone to sing at La Scala in 1932 followed by tenor Arthur Espiritu in 2007.
Soprano Rachelle Gerodias has worked with Viray in three opera productions namely the Rolando Tinio version of Puccini’s La Boheme, Gianni Schicchi and in the world premier of Fr. Manuel Maramba's "Lord Takayama Ukon."
Recalled Gerodias: “The first was very important to me because it was the Rolando Tinio adaptation of La Boheme at the CCP which was my very first opera production. We had two sets of cast - a junior and senior one. I was Rosina in the junior cast and Tito Gamy was the Marcello in the senior cast. In Gianni Schicchi ,I actually performed with him as his daughter, Lauretta while he played the title role of Gianni Schicchi to whom I sang the famous aria O mio babbino caro. I remembered his portrayal of that role very well. I thought he was the perfect Schicchi and singing Lauretta with him was such a great honor and pleasure for me.”
Added the soprano: “Tito Gamy is probably one of the best baritones the Philippines has produced. Such a great artist and singer. It was painful to see him after he got sick. He lost a lot of weight and his voice was never the same. But I will never forget his voice especially in La Boheme and Gianni Schicchi. I will always be thankful to be a witness and part of the life of such a great artist. Thank you, Tito Gamy! We will miss you!”
The soprano is right. Gamy is one of the last good baritones of his generation that included Nomer Son and Elmo Makil, among others. Bass baritone Emmanuel Gregorio and Makil had also passed away.
There is big comfort though in the new generation of baritones in the persons of Jonathan Zaens, Noel Azcona and Andrew Fernando, among others.
The way this country go crazy over tenors and sopranos at the expense of baritones was at one time deplored by environmentalist and art patron Odette Alcantara. “The lack of appreciation for bass and baritones in this country is something I begrudge,” Odette once said. “But as their voice category connotes, the bass and baritone are the foundation of an orchestra and even good choirs need the skeleton of good basses and baritones for them to shine.”
To the uninitiated in opera, the baritone is the middle male voice whose range is from G, an octave and a half below middle C. Those who can go below middle C are known as the bass. Tenors soar to reach their high Cs’ bass baritones descend to a super low C and even D.
Ordinary mortals like us can probably gurgle a low C but only good baritones like Gamy Viray can sing it.
The last time I saw Gamy was when he attended the recital of baritone Noel Azcona at the Pasig Museum where I mounted the Pasig Summer Music Festival which lasted for five years.
When Azcona sings at the Kiss The Cook Gourmet on Sunday, Oct. 24, with flutist Christopher Oracion and pianist Mary Anne Espina, we will certainly dedicate the concert to the late baritone of consequence.
For now, I will remember Gamy as Germont for his ravishing “Il provenza il mar” in the 1990 production of La Traviata and as Zurga in the 1981 Met production of The Pearl Fishers courtesy of the late Tita Conching Sunico.
Viray (far right) with his co-teachers at Santa Isabel College (Courtesy of Pablo Tariman)
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Classical musicians rule Aliw Awards
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Filipino classical musicians with solid world-class credentials topped the 23rd Aliw Awards on a stormy Monday night at the Manila Hotel.
Leading the distinguished awardees were pianist Cecile Licad who got the Life Achievement Award, tenor Arthur Espiritu who received the Best Male Classical Performer of the Year Award and soprano Camille Lopez Molina for Best Female classical performer award.
Licad is the first Asian to receive the Leventritt Gold Medal in New York and Espiritu is the first Filipino tenor to sing at La Scala di Milan in 2007 as Ferrando in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte. Lopez-Molina who was a dazzling soloist of the Manila Symphony Orchestra this year has performed with the Hongkong Academy Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien Orchestra, the latter in a performance of Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater at the famed Wiener Musikverein, home of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
The tenor could not receive the award as he was singing Elvino in the Donizetti opera in Switzerland while Licad had engagements with Nuremberg Symphony in Germany.
Previous Aliw awardees in classical music included Ingrid Sala Santamaria, Gilopez Kabayo, Rachelle Gerodias, Mary Anne Espina and Montet Acoymo, among others.
In a latest development, Licad dazzled anew in playing Chopin No. 1 played for the opening season of the Adrian Symphony Orchestra in Michigan .
Licad who proceeded to Germany after the US engagement was singled out by the music critics as one who set the highest standard of music-making for the opening season of the Michigan orchestra.
Wrote a Michigan critic: "It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Adrian Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of the first classical-music performance of its 30th season set the bar mighty high for the rest of its year. Sunday’s concert featured a performance that was most definitely a high point of this or any other ASO season: a truly world-class guest artist, Cecile Licad, in a stunning rendering of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Not often do you have the distinct pleasure of hearing someone for whom the instrument seems like a natural extension of themselves, but for Licad it appears exactly that way. She not only displayed a first-rate technique, with the light touch and refinement demanded of this work, but she also captured perfectly what surely had to be Chopin’s intentions with this music: for its understated grace and very intimate quality to shine through for the listener."
The same critic admitted it was a dazzling performance by any measure, and no less so for the orchestra under music director John Thomas Dodson’s baton, which certainly met the challenges Licad set up for it. "
He added: "And just in case you thought a piano work couldn’t get any better-played than the Chopin was, the Gottschalk piece she presented as an encore was, in a word, spectacular."
Licad performing with the Adrian Symphony Orchestra in Michigan
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Is That You, Monsieur Chopin?
But I never encountered a more cerebral classical pianist than the Frenchman Pascal Rogé. His program of "Chopin and French Impressionism" at the Philamlife Auditorium last night was performed the way a deeply knowledgeable curator would guide you through a history of period music by Fauré, Poulenc, Ravel and yes, the man whose bicentennial is being celebrated this year, the Polish musician who conquered France and the rest of Europe, who prematurely died of tuberculosis and whose heart is buried in his homeland and in all who continue to cherish his music.
Perhaps Rogé has nothing more to prove. He wasn't there to dazzle or impress us with fiery techniques; he is past that. When this ruggedly handsome performer strode onstage, he acquired the demeanor of a professor as he put on his glasses and played non-stop for at least an hour the nocturnes, valses, mazurkas and etudes of the composers earlier cited. No pause at all to acknowledge appreciative applause although there were one or two audience members who couldn't contain themselves.
We had to refrain from clapping after each piece as his interpretation seemed to be meant as one whole seamless piece where he tried to show us the differences and the likenesses of the composers of that period. All that was lacking was the voice-over of a lecture.
And always in the first and second parts of his program, Rogé closed with a Chopin piece as though to put the exclamation point to an entire periodic sentence running into several pages. In the second set of pieces, he alternated Debussy and Chopin till it was hard to tell them apart until you catch a familiar passage.
Nonetheless, Chopin's agony and ecstasy were evoked as were the suggestions of water Debussy unfailingly makes (to me, his is water music: waves licking shore, veils of waterfall, rain splattering on pavement and stones).
Retired music reviewer Anna Leah Sarabia, who still frequents concert halls, said in recognizing Chopin's genius and his embodying the spirit of his age, "He had the capacity to create monumental structures out of so much passion and tension. From them emerged exquisite treasures."
Rogé gave in to the two standing ovations the audience of a few hundred gave him with the piece (our personal favorite and the one I wished aloud he'd play) "Gymnopedie" by Erik Satie. This composer, dismissed in his time as clumsy and repetitive, had no qualms of calling his pieces furniture music, something best played as background to other activities. Well, it is the music I will specify in my living will as the one to be repetitively played till I breathe my last.
To Rogé we owe gratitude for playing against what producer Ray Sison described as "all odds of the storm landing in Manila. He will brave it and so will hundreds of us! I heard him this weekend in Hong Kong, and he means every note that comes out of his fingers."
Our next fervent wish is to hear Rogé again, this time playing four hands with his life partner Ami
Mr. Sison and all supporters/producers of live classical music concerts, are you listening?
Rogé signs diary of delighted fan. Photo by ANNA LEAH SARABIA
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