MUSIC
Affirmation and Resolve

By Rosalinda L. Orosa

THROUGH the years, the musical scene in Manila has followed a general pattern which affords audiences a fair measure of gratification and excitement.

Filipino instrumentalists and singers who have acquired varying degrees of international stature and recognition—e.g., pianists Cecile Licad, Raul Sunico, Reynaldo Reyes, violinist-conductor Oscar Yatco, tenor Otoniel Gonzaga, soprano Andion Fernandez—perform for home audiences while renewing ties with loyal “fans”.

These firmly established artists are joined by their younger peers—e.g., tenor Gary del Rosario, sopranos Margarita Gomez and Camille Lopez–who, while honing their skills in prestigious institutions abroad, and distinguishing themselves in affiliated opera productions, appear to have an international career within reach.

Further, we have a core of highly accomplished and richly talented home-based artists, many of whom have studied in the best conservatories in Europe and America—violinist Alfonso “Coke” Bolipata, flutist Antonio Maigue, pianist Greg Zuñiega, cellist Wilfredo Pasamba, and violinist-conductor Arturo Molina—who are frequently featured in recitals and concerts, as are local ensembles, primarily the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO). Last November 16, Lester Demetillo, arguably our best guitarist, and UP fellow professor Gerardo Duran, rendered Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” as transcribed for two guitars, in a recital at the Goethe Institut.

Significantly, visiting artists and groups, mostly from Europe, enhance and enliven the scene in various guises of excellence. Their performances and enlightening workshops leave indelible imprints, which serve their Filipino counterparts as inspirations, impetus and incentive.

With the foregoing entities and individuals creating and stimulating the musical life of the metropolis, let me now single out some of the most remarkable of them.

Licad, now firmly established in the international circuit, played twice at the Main Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The first, on April 6, was with the PPO under its music director Ruggero Barbieri for Rachmaninoff’s “Concerto in C Minor”; the second, on August 17, with the visiting 104-member Asian Youth Orchestra (AYO) under the baton of Romanian-born Maestro Sergiu Comissiona. Manila music lovers will never know how Licad’s rendition might have compared with that of Rachmaninoff who had to compose his daunting concerto to suit his own large hands, incredible finger-span and devastating technique. For her part, Licad infused the tired “war horse” with such fire, zest and spontaneity that it sounded fresh and vital.

The second performance of Licad put her in a class with such celebrities as pianists Alicia de Larrocha and Leon Fleisher, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma who, among others, had appeared as AYO soloists. In Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” Licad again, demonstrated the reason for her towering stature: emotional sensitivity and mind-boggling technical mastery. With each note shaped by her mind and spirit, by every pore of her being, she produced eloquent music that ranged from powerful, fiery and intense to pensive and probing. Alternately dramatic and lyrical, Licad’s interpretation reminded the audience that although Rachmaninoff was capable of fiendishly intimidating “fireworks,” he could likewise create hauntingly beautiful melodies.

The night following Licad’s stint, Leila Josefowicz, the phenomenal 23-year old American violinist, interpreted Mendelssohn’s “Concerto in E Minor.” Seamless, fluid, utterly refined, and impeccable, the rendition had melodic lines soaring to ineffable heights. Leila’s technical feats in the cadenza awed her listeners, and the overall performance gave full credence to a US critic’s belief that Josefowicz “should be one of the leading violinists of the 21st century”. Already, in her disc Solo, she plays unaccompanied virtuoso pieces by Bartok, Kreisler, Ysaye, Ernest, and Paganini. The debut recording of concertos by Sibelius and Tchaikovsky, which she made at 17, was given the “Best of the Month” award by Stereo Review. With Charles Dutoit conducting the Montreal Symphony, Josefowicz has likewise recorded violin concertos by Mendelssohn and Glasunov.

The AYO, consisting of Asia’s finest instrumentalists, ages 15 to 25, who are chosen through the most rigorous and competitive auditions, struck discerning audiences with its smooth, assured and expressive playing of the works of large dimension: Beethvoven’s “Symphony No. 7 in A” and Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite” (for the first concert), the Overture from Glinka’s “Russian and Ludmilla” and Dvorak’s “Symphony No.8 in G” (for the second). Incidentally, the AYO has performed under such eminent conductors as Yehudi, Menuhin, and Lukas Foss.

Preceding Licad’s tour de force was Raul Sunico’s own last June at St. Cecilia’s Hall where he played Ravel’s “Jeux d’eau,” “Alborada del Gracioso,” “Gaspard de la Nuit,” and Rachmaninoff’s “Etudes Tableaux (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9)” and “Sonata No. 2.”

Ravel’s descriptive pieces drew singular pianistic effects from Sunico. Because the composer had described “Jeux d’eau” as one “inspired by the sounds of water, cascades, and streams,” Sunico’s liquid sounds, sonorities and resonances wondrously evoked gently flowing or rippling waters through his marvelous digital dexterity in the upper register. His broken chords, for their part, conveyed the image of the mermaid Ondine.

What the listener visualized in “Le Gibet” (the gallows) was drastically different from what he saw—or felt—in “Scarbo” (will-o’-the-wisp). Owing to Sunico’s command of Ravel’s technical devices, listeners could not have wondered why Ravel himself called “Gaspard de la Nuit” “music of the transcendental virtuosity”—the kind Sunico possesses.

In Rachmaninoff’s “Etudes” and “Sonata,” the audience figuratively held its breath at its rapid, powerful chords alternating with delicately nuanced passages.

On October 11, to mark the centennial of the National Museum, Sunico, playing successively Liszt’s two legends, “St. Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds” and “St. Francis de Paul Walking over the Waters,” affirmed his awesome virtuosity. The second legend, for instance, had thundering chords and the swiftest runs played simultaneously, conveying the image of the saint miraculously walking over a storm-tossed sea.

The concert further showed Sunico’s talent as arranger, composer, and assisting artist. With the young German-Thai flutist Sebastian Bhakdi, the pianist formed a charming, relaxed partnership in Schubert’s “Sonata,” two selections from Saint-Saens’s “Carnival of the Animals,” Bizet’s “Carmen Fantasie.” As composer-arranger, Sunico converted Abelardo’s kundiman (native love song) into a formidable concert piece.

Even at this early stage, the career of another virtuoso, 20-year old Australian pianist Ali Wood, reads like a page from the Guinness Book of World Records or an item from Ripley’s Believe It or Not. At her August recital in the CCP Little Theater, two-thirds of her 21 selections were bravura pieces; e.g., two “Hungarian Rhapsodies” by Liszt (6 and 15), two “Etudes tableaux” (1 and 9) and the “Prelude in G Minor” by Rachmaninoff, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers,” which fellow-Australian pianist Percy Grainger had arranged for virtuosos like himself, and Chopin’s “Polonaisein A Flat” (the “Heroic”).

Observes a musicologist, Chopin’s “Polonaises” are too difficult for any, except the strongest and the most agile virtuoso; they are entirely beyond the reach of the amateur. Unfazed, the tiny, frail-looking Ali interpreted the “Heroic” after opening her recital with Bach’s “Minuet.” Before she played “Islamey” by Balakirev, she announced matter-of-factly, “This piece is like Mt. Everest; it’s the most difficult in all of the piano literature.” Yet, how she breezes through its devastatingly tricky, rapid configurations!

Her technical feats were absolutely astounding; further, she showed encompassing grasp of various styles and schools of music. Despite these, however, her interpretations seemed rather wanting in emotional depth, elegance of phrasing, subtlety of nuance and tonal color, partly because Ali had dashed from peak to peak, scarely leaving any breathing space for herself and her audience.

Growing visibly tired because of the overwhelming number of peaks, she was often seen massaging her hands between numbers. Yet, she graciously obliged with an encore—the first movement of Grieg’s “A Minor Concerto” no less! Ali, who earlier announced she was on an “exhausting” three-month tour, had given everything of herself to the audience.

Young Filipino artists might derive a lesson-in-the-reverse from this: they could burn themselves out prematurely under injudicious management.

In an invitational recital and a public one at the CCP Little Theater, petite Atsuko Temma impressed listeners as a brilliant violinist. With elan and brio, she interpreted standard classic pieces as well as “Stranger’s Songs” by the Japanese composer Kobayashi and “Baladia” by the Romanian Ciprin Porumbescu. Pianist Hirasawa lent splendid support.

Some of the most outstanding performances were those by European chamber ensembles—among the world’s finest—and their rare magnificence, transporting audiences to a “celestial” realm, gained countless devotees to baroque, pre-classic, and classic music.

These were the Italian Solisti Veneti (Venetian Soloists) at the CCP Main Theater, the Czech Suk Chamber Orchestra at the CCP Little Theater, the French Trio—two trumpeteers and an organist—at San Agustin Church, the German Rufus Frantz Piano Quintet at the Mandarin Oriental, and the German Musica Alta Ripa (MAR) whose quaint period instruments, at its St. Cecilia Hall concert, included the recorder, the harpsichord, and the chitarrone. Like the rest of the ensembles, the MAR draws glowing praise abroad: “The technically agile, musically sensitive period-instrument performances of the Hanover-based Musica Alta Ripa are first class.”—Gramophone. “They will please every baroque music-lover.”—Classics Today. “These players bring such elan and power to the music that they give the impression of a string orchestra.”—Fanfare.

The French Hantai Trio, consisting of expert gamba de viola players, had a single engagement at the San Agustin Church in Intramuros last November 28. The audience listened to Bach’s “Fugues in Three Voices” and selections, each played with exquisite sensitivity, by French and British composers of the 16th and the 17th centuries: R. de Lassus, Couperin, Tomkins, Ferabosco, Preston, Baldwin, Byrd, and Locke.

In any case, the previously mentioned chamber ensembles, each in its distinctive fashion, left deeply etched remembrances of superb music-making by orchestra or dazzling soloists: the “Solisti Veneti” virtuoso oboeist, trumpeteer, clarinetist, and violinist under the baton of Claudio Scimone; the Suk Chamber Orchestra and its magnetic soloist Jue Yao whose dynamic, masterful rendition of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” was played on the violin which Isaac Stern had passed on to her; the Rufus Frantz Piano Quintet’s stunning violinists, violist, cellist, and pianist Frantz himself whose mission is to discover extraordinary young talent.

The European ensembles’ superlative showing had doubtless inspired our own music groups to soar to greater heights. For instance, the Battig Trio, named after the German Benedictine nun who introduced Western music education in the Philippines in 1907, which trio consists of violinist Arturo Molina, pianist Greg Zuniega, and cellist Wilfredo Pasamba—each has received the best training in New York, London, and Moscow—can eventually join their ranks, if given the opportunity. The youth chamber orchestra of the Pundaquit Festival in Zambales (just outside Manila) was organized virtually single-handedly by world-class violinist and indefatigable administrator “Coke” Bolipata, and performs in the city’s churches during Lent and on so many other occasions. Admirably on its own, it has drawn the attention of the cognoscenti to the superior quality of its playing.

Two fledgling youth orchestras—Cebu’s 65-member Peace Philharmonic Philippines and the 48-member Manila Symphony Orchestra II—have the potential to reach the stature of the 104-member Asian Youth Orchestra, if given sufficient subsidy with which to increase their players and to acquire new instruments. The AYO members come from Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, with the largest contingent being Japanese (24); the smallest, Filipino (5). Why? Our cultural agencies may have to look into the reason for this conspicuous disparity: as a supreme irony, Filipinos are admired the world over for their inherent and extraordinary musical talent!

It might be relevant to add that lamentably, for lack of more palpable and permanent incentives, our orchestras seem to be in continuous state of flux: players come and go; often they are enticed to join nightclub bands or leave for more lucrative assignments in neighboring Asian countries.

Because of prohibitive production costs, with would-be sponsors often claiming “donor fatigue,” the Opera Guild of the Philippines no longer holds a regular opera season. However, last September, the Singapore Lyric Opera mounted Verdi’s “Il Trovadore” at the CCP in cooperation with the Guild.

Opera lovers were enthralled mainly with Beijing’s Yang Jie as Azucena. What a glorious, arresting, soaring voice was hers! Further, she emoted as compellingly as she sang, depicting grief, anguish, fear, anxiety as each aria demanded. The two Filipinos in the cast, Rachel Gerodias (Leonora’s confidant) and Lemuel dela Cruz (Manrico’s aide), lent strong support although they did not match the power and volume of the foreign (mostly European) principals. The cohesive chorus, predominantly Filipino, left little to be desired; further, there was consistent rapport between the cast and the PPO under its regular conductor. On the whole, the production, conceptualized and directed by Singaporean Leow Siak Fah, was a resounding success.

Initially received with general skepticism, Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” was mounted full-length in mid-November and early December by the Iloilo Arts Council at the CAP auditorium, with the internationally acclaimed violinist Gilopez Kabayao and his concert pianist wife Corazon as the moving spirit behind the unique, audacious production. Despite a limited budget, which led to a piano instead of an orchestral accompaniment, a considerably reduced and virtually unknown cast which was appearing in opera for the first time—and singing in Italian, at that—the Kabayaos effectively engaged in music proselytism: the students and many others in the audience had never heard an opera before!

Being regarded by the cognoscenti as the inheritor of Toscanini’s mantle, Piero Gamba enhances the reputation of Manila whenever he conducts here. The Maestro’s unparallelled New York engagement at the Millennium Gala Concert of the Nations in 1999 had him wielding the baton over the Symphonicum Europae Orchestra composed of 40 concert-masters and 70 principals from 50 nations—that is, from festival symphonies and other prestigious orchestras from every continent.

This very same Maestro Gamba conducted the PPO in Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” at Makati’s San Antonio Church for its silver jubilee. Waving the baton sans score, and with utmost economy of movement, the Maestro drew the best sounds in terms of tonal balance, blending and homogeneity. From the first movement on, how the music conjured grandeur and majesty! The intensity of the cellos (led by Renato Lucas) and the double basses was complemented by the mighty voices in the choral setting to Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” The six different choirs singing together expressly for the occasion—remarkably unified by choirmaster Jonathan Velasco—and the orchestra superbly integrated and galvanized by Maestro Gamba, created a towering climax that soared to the heavens. For their part, the soloists, tenor Nolyn Cabahug, baritone Elmo Makil, and alto Janet Sabas Aracama, were in fine fettle.

Another significant vocal concert which was in a church, the San Agustin in Intramuros, was Rossini’s “Stabat Mater,” with soloists Cabahug, Aracama, mezzo soprano Aileen Cura Espinosa, and bass Lawrence Jatayna, performing with the UP Concert Chorus and the PPO under Barbieri. Espinosa’s voice held the audience in thrall with its carrying power; Aracama’s tones, deep and darkly resonant, rose above those of the other soloists; Cabahug asserted once again his leading position among home-grown peers, Rossini’s score for the tenor being unduly demanding. With clean lines surfacing from each section, the strings, smoothly flowing, were movingly expressive. While the trombones blared ominously, Jatayna’s voice grew warmer and bigger. Ensemble singing was close, with mighty voices lifted in surging waves of sound, dynamics widely contrasting and firmly controlled. Indeed, as interpreted, the “Stabat Mater” could have stirred the audience enough into believing that its Quis est Homo was sung at Rossini’s own funeral.

Heightening auditory pleasure was the visual experience of viewing on the altar the huge statues of Jesus and Mary at the foot of the cross, the images consequently deepening the intent of Christ’s passion as expressed in words and music.

Time and again, but even more persuasively this year, three university choirs—the University of Santo Tomas singers, the University of the Philippines Singing Ambassadors, and the Ateneo Glee Club—triumphed over top international choirs, thereby affirming the incredible musical talent inherent in the Filipino. Arguably, the country is the world’s most fertile, if virtually still untested ground for impresarios in search of uncommonly gifted singers as well as instrumentalists.

In the World Choral Festival 2001 in Puebla, Mexico, the UST Singers, led by Fidel Calalang Jr., was chosen “Best Choir” over 12 others in Europe and South America. For its coup, the choir closed the ceremonies by singing in the 4,000-capacity Teatro Reforma.

At its homecoming concert in Philamlife Auditorium, the 33-member choir sustained interest on the highest plane with songs in Latin, English, Spanish and Pilipino that encompassed the best choral literature of the last five centuries, ending with an avant-garde, atonal “Stabat Mater” composed by J. Barkausas in 1991. Expectedly, the concert was nothing less than superb.

The 30-member UP Singing Ambassadors, directed by Ed Manguiat, brought back from international contests a record-breaking number of awards: three first prizes, a golden diploma, a conductor’s prize, and a special prize for best interpretation of a Hungarian composition (Germany); two first prizes (cum laude) and the Grand Prix (Slovakia); a first prize in the XIX Festival Internacional de Musica (Spain); two first prizes in Belgium, and the Gran Premio Citta d’Arezzo (Italy). The “Olympics” of choral singing, its “dream” prize, qualifies the UP Singing Ambassadors to vie for next year’s European Grand Prix.

In Nevers, France, choir director Catherine Fender asked the singers: “How do you do it, dear? I could hear every voice and yet your sound as a group was really blended. It’s amazing how you could achieve that homogeneity.”

When the choir sang at the American church in Paris in memory of the victims of the September 11 New York tragedy, President Jacques Chirac was so moved, he asked the head pastor, “Who are these singers?” Little wonder, when the ensemble performed in late November at the cocktails hosted by Ambassador Robert Collette in Westin Plaza to honor the Montreal Ballet Jazz, the listeners virtually danced to the infectious singing. Superlatives were in order.

The 36-member Ateneo Glee Club, under principal conductor-musical director Joel Navarro and guest conductor Jonathan Velasco, garnered two first prizes in Germany’s International Chamber Choir Competition in Marktoverdorf for “its excellent performance on an international level” and for best interpretation of sacred music. Both prize-winning events were conducted by Velasco. At its farewll concert the singers must have anticipated a jury member’s comment: “Man can only stop in wonder at such perfection in sound, dynamics, and all the rest.”

Music by Filipino composers was by no means ignored. To begin with, the programs of the choirs cited, and those of all other choirs as well as orchestras, invariably included Filipino pieces, e.g., Francisco Feliciano’s avant-garde “Pokpok Alimpako,” Antonino Buenaventura’s lyrical “By the Hillside”, Redentor Romero’s “Philippine Portraits,” etc.

This year, the Tribung Pinoy, founded 23 years ago by art patron Danny Dolor, gave a recital at the Pearl Manila Hotel as a continuing fulfillment of its aim “to propagate the love for and interest in traditional Filipino music—the kundiman, harana, balitaw, and danza—especially among the youth,” and thus conserve our musical heritage. The program being a tribute to Constancio C. de Guzman (1903-1982), most of the songs rendered by sopranos Sylvia la Torre, Liza Cabahug and Gloria Coronel, tenor Nolyn Cabahug, and baritone Vladimir Valera were by him.

Last November, two concerts honored National Artist Lucio D. San Pedro: at the CCP, the Madrigal Singers under National Artist Andrea Veneracion sang his works; the Angono Symphony Band played his marches. At St. Cecilia’s Hall, the audience heard “Sa Ugoy ng Duyan” (a lullaby), “Leron Leron Sinta,” and “The Angelus.”

The concert of works by Jeffrey Ching at the Francisco Santiago Hall pointed him up as an incredibly prodigious, protean, erudite, and innovative composer, his originality and creativity leading Leonor O. Goquingco to observe: “Ching’s compositions have pushed musical frontiers.” Indeed, the young Filipino-Chinese artist is so gifted and versatile that he shifts from tonal to atonal with equally astonishing results. In this regard, what most appealed to this reviewer in the aforementioned concert were the atonal “Terra Kytaorum (Fabled Land of the Cathayans)”—commissioned by the World Brass of Berlin and premiered by it in Berlin’s Philharmonic Hall last January—and the tonal “Le Nozze,” a wedding cantata.

Crafted for 10 brass players and three percussionists, “Terra Kytaorum,” although based on Ching’s own imaginary history of Beijing, has its “hymns” derived from actual, eclectic sources ranging from the fourth century to contemporary times. The work was played on trumpets, sliding trombones, chimes, drums, a temple block, with human voices—supplied by the instrumentalists themselves—recreating the screams of political prisoners. Rodel Colmenar conducted.

Other atonal pieces, replete with startlingly ingenious instrumental devices, were interpreted by violinist Alfonso Bolipata, cellist Renato Lucas, and pianist Nita Abrogar Quinto. Greg Zuniega’s piano solo was in the same mind-boggling style.

Arturo Molina wielded the baton over the MSO Strings, the Philippine Wood Ensembles and the Philippine Brass Band for the classic-romantic “Le Nozze.” Jointly, orchestra and singers, Nolyn and Lisa Cabahug, conveyed its grandeur and majesty.

December, like any othe month, was characterized by musicales which featured top artists. For instance, the Philippine Association of German Academic Exchange Scholars held a chamber music recital at the Goethe Institut with three of the country’s most eminent instrumentalists—pianist Nena del Rosario Villanueva, flutist Eric Barcelo and cellist Renato Lucas.

One need only read the briefest resume of Villanueva’s credentials to know her caliber. A favorite student of Vladimir Horowitz, she is the Philippines’ first international concertist. Before she even entered Curtis Institute in Philadelphia at age 11, she already learned 10 concertos by heart! She has played with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, the New York and CBS Symphony Orchestras, the Japan Philharmonic under Watenabe and the NHK under Ozawa. In Japan, she was assisting artist to cellist Mtislav Rostropovich and violinist Rony Rogoff. She has concertized in Japan, Spain, China, Hongkong, London. Just last November, she played in Prague with the PPO on its first European tour. Now a grandmother and still a virtuoso, she is justifiably regarded a living legend.

The foregoing assessment and evaluation of the musical scene will not be complete without its inclusion of “French Spring in Manila”—a tremendous cultural project of the French Embassy and the Alliance Francaise which, for the last three years, has been presenting some of France’s best visual and performing artists in major theater venues. The uniqueness of its unprecedented programs, sometimes with the participation of Filipino counterparts, enlivens the musical scene immeasurably.

When “French Spring” opened in May at the Mandarin Oriental ballroom, there seemed no limit to the astonishing ingenuity and audacity of the six-member Double-Bass Orchestra. Often, the instruments sounded like everything else, except double-basses. The audience witnessed implausible or incredible means of producing strange, curious, eerie sounds—mostly atonal and ostensibly inspired by soul, Latin or jazz. Have you ever heard palms squeaking as they slide over the double-bass? Or seen two players dancing each with his respective instrument, while carrying it or twirling it around, thus executing a pas de deux or in this case, a pas de quatre? Indeed, throughout the concert, the listener watched an amazing demonstration of how not to play the double-bass—unless the performer was himself a wizard blazing a trail through the absolute mastery of his instrument.

At the concert of trumpeteers Serge Rougegrez and Alain Fontes, and organist Georges Besonnet at the San Agustin Church, the audience momentarily imagined itself in Versailles Palace listening to exquisite baroque music being played for royalty. Excitingly exuberant young artists—pianist Jerome Docrus (27), cellist Gautier Capucon (19), and violinist Frederic Pelassy (27)—closed “French Spring.”

This year, the Spanish Embassy and the Instituto Cervantes initiated their own cultural contribution: “Fiesta!”, this calling to mind, in a more modest fashion, “French Spring.” It featured the enthralling guitarist Armando Orbon, doubtless one of Spain’s greatest, and the Filipino-Spanish virtuoso Felipe Ramirez Jr. who, true to his lineage, infused a great deal of Spanish music—works by Granados and De Falla—into his two recitals, the first at the CCP Little Theater, the second, at the new RCBC auditorium. Virtuoso pieces included Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No.2” and “La Campanella.” Sponsors of “Fiesta!” aver it is just the start of a yearly enterprise.

In conclusion, sparks of excitement were generated by foreign and Filipino concertists—”old” and new—who decidedly would have welcomed more palpable incentives. This essay cannot be more emphatic in its affirmation of native talent. A new breed of marvelously gifted musical artists—among them, bass-baritone Jonathan Zaens, pianists Mariel Ilusorio, Jonathan Coo, and Hiyas Hila, violinists Gina Medina and Melissa L. Exmundo—invariably emerges with each artist needing tangible impetus for the eventual launching of his/her career.

Grasping every opportunity to perform in public, these idealists fervently hope that cultural agencies, both government and non-government, will jointly make an unfaltering resolve to delve deeply into the urgent problems assailing them, and thereby coordinate policies for the promotion of enterprises in the field of classic music. More integrated and organized financial commitment and moral encouragement are imperative for each artist’s growth, development, progress, and, indeed, for his very survival.

About the Author
ROSALINDA L. OROSA has received numerous national and international awards for her contribution to the arts, including the German Officer’s Cross of Merit, the UN Decade of Culture award, the Premio Zobel, and a CCP Centennial award. She currently writes a column for the Philippine Star.