A Doggy Life

Exactly a week ago today, Bogart, our family's mini pin, went missing. I slipped out of the house early that Saturday to catch the bus to Baguio to make it to the opening of “Produce from the Garden” at Cafe by the Ruins (still up on its walls are our lip-smacking paeans to fruits, herbs, vegetables, favorite ulam and desserts, all things that sustain our lives).

I wasn't aware of anything unusual until I got an urgent SMS from my sister while the bus traversed Tarlac asking if I had seen or heard Bogart before departing. No, I answered, but I heard him wailing a short while the night before— his usual lament for his mistress, my kid sister Gigi, because she wasn't home at her usual hour. But I dismissed the sound

Earlier, I made a mental note to use Bogart for a future subject for a painting. His “austere dignity”, to borrow poet Denise Levertov's phrase, never fails to impress me, especially when he sits very still on his haunches, his head up, his eyes looking past the window, his ears like antennae, keen to the sound of the car as it turns left on our street with Gigi at the wheel. Mommy calls him a good guard dog because he yelps non-stop when he picks up the scent of strangers at our gate.

Because I was too far to be of any help in the neighborhood-wide search for him, I texted that they post a picture of him in Facebook. This social network has helped others find their missing pets. Gigi managed to compose an emotional email with a photo of Bogart attached. She sounded like she was saying goodbye, giving him up for lost.

My youngest brother Eric got a rude awakening that Saturday when he heard the news. Without even splashing water on his face, he dashed out, going from street to street, alley to alley of Barangay Kapitolyo, calling out Bogart's name. Another sister recounted how Eric would return home just to quaff his thirst, catch his breath a few minutes. Then he went out to resume the search.

Later in the day, Gigi thought of telling the security guards to spread the word that she was offering a cash reward for information leading to Bogart's recovery. She went in to shower. She wasn't done toweling her body dry when the doorbell rang, and a street urchin came forward with information. The child had seen someone catch the dog when he wiggled his small body free from the fence railing and jumped to what he must've thought was freedom.

Because Bogart can be fierce and noisy, the captor put him in a sack and brought him to a new home. Gigi was led to the place. From her account, it was blighted, filthy and dark, a narrow passageway allowing one person at a time to pass through. There a man reeking of alcohol met her and demanded P200 for Bogart's release. He kept the dog in a bird's cage.

Gigi paid up, he asked for more, but once Bogart was handed over, she left, silently furious.

Yesterday I called to ask how dog and mistress were doing. Gigi said Bogart has shown signs of trauma, fearful and shaking at the sight of strange men when they go out for walks.

I impulsively said, “He might need the services of a dog whisperer.”

I could feel Gigi brightening up on the end of the line: “You know of one?”

I told her I was kidding. I've heard of horse whisperers but no one for dogs yet.

Bogart has been the center of everyone's attention since his return. Bruno, the playful, spirited mini pug, doesn't mind playing secondary actor to this little drama.

I imagine there must be double poignancy when Gigi calls out to Bogart and Bruno when she leaves for work each day, “Be good boys now. Take care of each other and the people at home. See you later. When I get back from work, we’ll play.”

Photo above shows Kimi Fernandez carrying Bogart a few days before he went missing. Lower photo, Bogart in his green shirt on St. Francis Day

Home Works for the Lluch and Dalena Women

 For Julie Lluch, one of the Philippines’ top sculptors, home truly works as proven by her and her three daughters in their first family exhibition at Alliance Francaise in Makati City.

Initially resistant to the idea of a family show, Lluch, 64, a philosophy alumna of the University of Santo Tomas, said: “I found the proposed concept of a family show the corniest thing. But as Alliance president Deanna Ongpin was very forceful in convincing us and we started to work, we found the idea not so cheesy anymore.”

Lluch, Sari, Aba and Kiri Dalena are known in Manila’s art circle as among the most stylish dressers and bold experimenters in their respective media. So going corny would be the path not taken.

The agreement was to pursue each one’s preferred direction, but as their pieces evolved, the reality set in that they are indeed a family, “always together, working parallel, sourcing, referencing, referring and referring to each other,” the mother said.

There was the obvious: Aba, Kiri and Julie live in the same four-storey house in Quezon City. Sari, married and a mother of two, resides nearby.

Lluch said: “We know each other intimately. I feel blessed to be their mother. Art seems so natural to them. I never thought I’d have a doctor in the family. We understand each other better because we move in the same art community. Sometimes, I wish one of us can cook well or can nurse when one of us is ill.”

The four women arrived at the title “Home Works,” the name of an earlier show Aba had. This latest one however does not refer to the job or assignment they had to do at their home studio but to the idea that their home life does work for all.

“In this show, I realized that we are our most comfortable and boldest selves,” Lluch said. “When the pieces were installed, I saw that the content was very sexual.”

Aba has a sculpture of dogs copulating. Kiri has gigantic condoms that could also be interpreted as breasts. Sari filmed, with her husband Keith Sicat’s assistance, a portrait of herself in the bloom of pregnancy, baring her body to the camera while floating in a pool.

When Lluch voiced aloud her observation, Sari said: “You’re the boldest, Mom. You’re the original.”

Sari, 40, a film studies graduate of the University of the Philippines, was jittery about her video being viewed by her father-in-law on opening night, but her sisters and mother affirmed her.

She said: “Afterwards, I didn’t need affirmation from elsewhere. We have lots of fun teasing each other.”

She credited Lluch for “giving us lots of freedom.”

Lluch’s oil painting “Self-portrait,” done in 1972, was shown for the first time. Sari was always mystified about it as a child, but she realized the depth of its subject matter when she became a mother. It shows Julie, pregnant with a second child and minding an unseen baby in a crib, waiting for her spouse to come home.

Sari said: “I related to it when I started waiting up for my husband and for the baby to be born. Sometimes, I find myself torn between raising a family and making films. What Mom painted was a good example of how to avoid post-partum depression by creating artworks or continuing working. Otherwise, you go crazy.”

Aba, 38, a UP fine arts graduate, created a series of dioramas about family life. One showed her father, painter Danilo Dalena painting. Another had her and her sisters engaged in child’s play (she drawing, Sari on the piano, and Kiri with a bundle about to run away from home). The third portrayed her mother surrounded by her cacti sculpture series. What unified the dioramas was the presence of one of their dogs in each as these pets were considered family, too.

Kiri, 34, who finished human ecology at UP Los Baños, agreed: “Home has held us all together.”
Her contributions referred to the condom sculptures and risqué-worded t-shirts her dad made in her childhood. For example, he had a shirt that said: “Key king math thumb book.” In Tagalog, these words read: “bulbous vagina.”

Kiri’s neon-lighted sculpture used the same play of words, this time poking fun at the male genitalia. Hers read: “Teeth thing mall lamb bought.” InFilipino, it means “soft penis.”

She also showed “Penis Line,” small, finger-sized penises in various positions of arousal and state of rest. She considered it ironic that while making these, she was working on a documentary on abortion.

To her, joining “Home Works” wasn’t all that hard. She said: “It was just about being yourself, being relaxed and at ease, except for Mom who issued constant reminders to us to finish our works on schedule.”

Just like a family, indeed.

Photo of Julie (in checkered skirt), family and blogger by GARI BUENAVISTA

Article originally published by VERA Files

Pacquiao, Licad, Macuja & Other Tales of Heroism

 For the nth time, I'm ceding this space to Pablo Tariman. Last night, I came home from "FILMhamoniKa," conductor Gerald Salonga and his FILarmoniKA Orchestra's last performance in their concert season, a real jab at popularity because they selected memorable music from the movies. The repeated ovations for the young music director, his equally young orchestra and guest vocalist Bituin Escalante are a positive sign for orchestral music's future. 


Walking back to the car park, I thought aloud to my concert companions how Salonga could follow Leonard Bernstein's footsteps (his Joy of Music and his Young People's Concert series helped  popularize the classics among American children by using the then young medium of television). I noticed three videographers onstage recording the entire concert at Philamlife auditorium and took their presence to mean that "FILMharmoniKa" will soon air on TV. That means a wider audience can be reached. 

Salonga is a good communicator. He is not shy about turning to face the audience between numbers to pick up the mic and annotate a piece before it is performed. It is a format that will help create and mold a new audience that will consider concert-going a vital part of their lives. 

My hope is in his 2011 season, he will add, pound for pound, more classics in the orchestra's repertoire. May he strike a balance between crowd-pleasers like last night's "Star Wars Suite," "James Bond Theme," among others, and the musical wealth of the ages that is little seen and heard live. We see the makings of another sort of champion if he achieves this.
___________________________

By Pablo A. Tariman
 "It’s an outrage and a total disgrace to pay a boxer a million dollars just to have him punch someone on the nose while musicians can hardly make a living. Even if I were given a ticket to the Ali-Frazier fight, I wouldn’t see it it.” --  Antonia Brico, American conductor in during a 1975 presscon in Manila

“With deep concern for his millions of fans around the world, Pacquiao may have to ‘let go’ of an opportunity to finish the ‘Tijuana Tornado’ early in the fight and prolong the action up to the later rounds in order to put entertainment into the fight.”
      --  A sports writer covering the Pacquaio-Margarito fight  in Texas

The Pacquiao-Margarito fight in Texas, USA, once more put to  test the strength and status of the Filipino boxer as the greatest boxing hero for all time.

Pacquiao’s greatness is witnessed in  less than two hours--sometimes less than 30-minutes--by  millions all over the world every time he faces a new opponent.

Coming from a poor family who has seen the many humiliating faces of poverty, Pacquiao has found a way out of third world status by boxing his way to world fame.

Aside from his superhero status, he has amassed untold wealth, dizzying fame and  adulations and has conveniently metamorphosed from boxer  to product endorser,  aspiring singer, actor and now congressman of his Mindanao province. He is husband to a beautiful wife, father to healthy children and a good son to a mother who brought him up despite her own economic and marital woes in the past.

From the way he was and is now, Pacquiao is a role model , a legitimate boxing hero and a candidate for greatness which many think he acquired already.

Do other Filipinos acquire fame and fortune and qualities of greatness the way Pacquiao did.?

If the boxing glove was Pacquao’s instrument, the power of the pen was Jose Rizal’s  greatest weapon and he used it to expose the atrocities of the Spanish rulers and in the process  acquired greatness and a national hero status.

But if there are heroes in the boxing arena, there are also unsung heroes in the performing arts.

Iloilo-born Filipino tenor Otoniel Gonzaga was reaping  audience adulation in Vienna  as Calaf in Turandot and as Bacchus in the  Strauss opera, Ariadne auf Naxus and todate remains the only Filipino tenor who has sung the Verdi opera, Otello.

Another Filipino opera singer  from Morong, Rizal, Arthur Espiritu, made history by becoming the first Filipino tenor to make it at La  Scala di Milan (the Mandalay Stadium of opera) in 2007. Some 67 years ago, a Filipino baritone by the name of Jose Mosessgeld Santiago Font made the same conquest in La Scala  in  the year 1932.

Recently, Lea Salonga  was again the toast of  England and the millions of tv viewers as she sang in the 25th anniversary concert of Les Miserables in London where she was the first Filipina to sing the lead part of that musical.  She is the first Filipina actor to receive  both the Olivier and Tony Awards in theater.

Of late, a 46-year old ballerina in the person of Lisa Macuja Elizalde got steady and consistent acclaim for her roles in Giselle, Don Quijote and lately, Le Corsaire. She happens to be the first and  last Filipino soloist (in fact, the first foreigner)  of Kirov Ballet where  the imminent Mikhail Baryshnikov  and Natalia Makarova came from.

After her triumphs in several continents, Cecile Licad again made waves in Michigan and Germany with her Chopin No. 1. Now headed for Russia where she will become the first Filipino soloist of the Russian State Orchestra, Licad is  also the first Filipino to get the Leventritt Gold Medal in New York (the same medal that went to  Van Cliburn and Gary Graffman) and was adjudged by a New York Times critic  Harris Goldsmith  as a new member of the  league of the world’s greatest pianists.

For their own brand of heroism, these artists deserve more than token notice from the government. They will never enjoy a pay-per view income, only a few can buy several luxury cars and mansions and their highly acclaimed performances will not get congressmen booking flights abroad for their performances.

Which bring us to reflect on the plight of artists with no millions in pre-performance contracts. They have had to make do with modest fees compared to million of dollars of world boxing champs.

Once again, let’s cheer Manny Pacquiao for the nth time for the extraordinary brain and brawn he  has shown in this Sunday's fight.

But for once, we should also remember that the world also needs heroes and heroines who can replenish and warm the heart and spirit of people  in these  difficult and uncertain times.

In this aspect, a  Cecile Licad, an Otoniel Gonzaga,  a Lea Salonga and a Lisa Macuja  have done more than enough to make our country more proud. They will win hearts and minds and they will prove they can make a difference -- not by beating an international foe to a bloody pulp --  but in showing the nobility of the human spirit through the language of music, theater and dance.

They didn't do it because it's trabaho lang.     

They did it for art, love and  life and with no hope of a state motorcade and  prospects for product endorsements.

Pacquiao's image from cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/ima

Sinag de Leon Contemporizes Art of Paper Cutting

As a child growing up in Marikina, Sinag de Leon thrived in an environment strewn with samples of Philipine folk arts and crafts, her parents being avid aficionados and lecturers on the subject.
She picked up a volume of Childcraft and followed the instructions on how to cut out and form a snowflake out of paper. Snow being alien to her sensibility, she wondered how the intricate designs on pastillas de leche wrappers from Bulacan could be duplicated in her new-found medium.

A vanishing craft in that province, paper cutting has been given a contemporary twist in the series of solo exhibits de Leon has had this year. Her latest solo show “Aninag” at the San Beda Museum in the college campus on Don Manolo Ave., Alabang Hills, Muntinlupa City is on extended run until Nov. 30.

Prof. Felipe M. de Leon, her father, said in the exhibition notes the latest exhibit is different because she “presses her paper cuts within two or three transparent glass panels, making them visible from two sides.”

The result is an interplay of light patterns with the glass panels turning into negative spaces. With the pin lights of the museum artfully turned on the objects, shadows of the paper cut shapes are reflected on the walls.

“Aninag is a fitting title because in Tagalog, it means looking through a transparent or translucent medium,” he wrote.

A Philippine Studies graduate of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, de Leon explained that the Filipino’s love of designs predates the arrival of the Spaniards. It is reflected in the tendency “to beautify spaces to please the eyes,” she said, citing the country’s gold collection — one of the best in the world, wood carvings and shavings in Pakil, Laguna, ornate architectural details like the panolong in Maguidanao, the tattoos on the bodies of Cordillera people, the swirls embroidered on the barong Tagalog in Lumban, Laguna, and copper bracelets.

Paper is also commonly used in local crafts like the papier mache horses peddled outside churches in Southern Luzon provinces, buntings or banderitas hung on a line during fiestas, on the head gear or Ati-atihan dancers and masks at Maskara Fesivals in the Visayas.

Paper cutting requires the simplest materials: a pair of pointed scissors and paper. The creativity is up to the user. The sheet of paper is just folded once, twice or thrice. The user starts cutting to form patterns, taking care not to cut across the paper so the piece isn’t ruined.

The beginner can draw patterns and with practice, these can be discarded. De Leon is proud that none of her paper cuts have repeat patterns.

Apart from exhibiting, she enjoys sharing her skills, saying, “I feel so blessed to share what I do. That is why when I get invited to do a show or demo/workshop, I grab the opportunity and challenge myself.”

She added: “I like to explore my options as a budding artist. That is why I feel that I have to expose my works to a wider audience. I am happy with the comments of people who see my works and become more inspired to do more.”

In time for her 37th birthday on Nov. 20, she will have another solo exhibit at Likha Diwa, a restaurant on C. P. Garcia Ave., UP campus, Diliman, Quezon City, with an environmental theme, using recycled paper instead of new ones.
Her shows refer to Filipino and Asian themes: “Paper Jam” at Likha Diwa was a play of colors with food as inspiration; “Dreamweaves” at Conspiracy Bar was inspired by mandalas and dream catchers, or things that help a person meditate or concentrate; and “Sinalimbay” was inspired by big space and warm colors of “Kiss The Cook Gourmet” where for the first time she doubled and tripled the size of her paper cuts as a challenge to herself (one piece took her a day and a half to cut).

“Aninag is different because for the first time, I did not paste the paper cuts on a paper background,” De Leon said. “By using glass panels, viewers are able to see just the paper cut itself, without any distractions.”

Her mother, Anna Leah Sarabia, never ceases to wonder how her eldest daughter continues to re-invent herself every few years. After she graduated, de Leon worked as a school teacher; then she joined a women’s nongovernmental organization.

This year marked a turning point for de Leon who had proven herself an artist as well.

Photo by Anna Leah Sarabia shows Sinag (in black) with her workshop participants. 


Originally published by VERA Files

Food from 4 Foodies

Whenever we get together, we being art teacher Norman Chow, watercolorist-writer Baboo Mondoñedo, baker-theology instructor Toottee Chanco Pacis and me, talk is spiced by food on the table or food imagined. So it comes as no surprise that for our group show, "Produce from the Greenhouse," we are united by the subject of sustenance. We officially open our exhibition of acrylics, watercolors and pastels on Nov. 20, Saturday, at 4 p.m. at Cafe by the Ruins, homing zone of foodies from all over the archipelago. We can't assure that a lechon will be the buffet table's centerpiece, but a jolly good time will most certainly be had by all. 

Poster design by Jennifer Cariño

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.

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

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).