It’s all gloomy if we talk about politics, the economy, the environment, and even the weather in our country. But it instantly becomes sunny if the chatter shifts to art and music in our midst.
It must be said again and again. It was a master stroke for our government to have permanently waived entrance fees in all our national museums way back in 2016. As a result, throngs of ordinary people line up daily to view the cultural treasures of our heritage.
It turns out that the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) has been doing a similar program as early as the 1990s. The CCP regularly brings the world-class Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) to perform for free in the provinces. Our small town of Alcala, Cagayan, became a recipient of this outstanding outreach program early this month with a concert dubbed as “Samiweng ti Away” (Music of the Countryside).
Led personally by CCP president Maria Margarita “Margie” Moran-Floirendo, 48 of our country’s top musicians came to perform in our rural town. It is widely acknowledged that each PPO member belongs to the crème de la crème of each category of our country’s music instrument players. The contingent came with a complement of production and technical staff, with CCP senior executives Alexander Cortez and Eugene de los Santos supervising the performances. I would hazard a guess that it was the first time for almost everyone in our town to see and hear many of the musical instruments, and played in symphony at that.
“It has been our mission at the [CCP] to go out to the different regions and bring our brand of shows and programs to our kababayans … We always believe that music transcends through boundaries and unite us as Filipino people,” said Moran-Floirendo. For this year so far, the PPO has performed in Iloilo, Guimaras, Laguna, Sorsogon, Palawan, and Cavite, apart from our town.
In a testament to their sincerity and passion in their mission to bring to poor communities the kind of extraordinary music associated with the rich and famous, the CCP-PPO did not perform for only one night in the more prosperous east side of our town which is situated along the national highway. They crossed the wide-expanse of the Cagayan River to do a second concert in the more remote and economically challenged farming community in the west side of our municipality.
The PPO performed more than a dozen compositions, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Vivaldi classical pieces. They also performed a medley of popular Ilocano songs which were natural hits among the crowd. But what made the audience sway or sing along with gusto were renditions of “Jopay” by Mayonnaise, “Awitin mo, at Isasayaw ko” by VST and Company, “Katawan” by Hagibis, “Annie Batungbakal” by Hotdog, and the theme songs of “Voltes V” and “Mission Impossible.” Two singers known as “The Nightingales” and who have performed in the Carnegie Hall in New York City, belted pitch-high songs. Our town’s young music scholars, and our town mayor, had the experience of their lives when they respectively sang “Dreamgirls” and “Defying Gravity” with the full orchestra. Both concerts were packed with the young and old, rich and poor, in attendance.
Esteemed PPO conductor Maestro Herminigildo Ranera—who played a major part in bringing the event to Alcala—created a commendable teaching moment when he made each section of the orchestra play their instruments, enabling the crowd to listen to the unique sound produced by each instrument, including the bassoon which was introduced as the “clown of the orchestra.”
The CCP-PPO performance boosted our local government unit’s (LGU) music program. Our LGU has been bringing teachers from Manila to train audition-passing youngsters in voice, violin, viola, and cello (so far). The music scholars receive free tutorials, are provided with free-use of instruments, and given monthly stipends. The aim is to support outstanding local talents to pursue careers in music, and for our municipality to form a music band in the short term and an orchestra in the long term.
Our town is inundated by floods yearly because we are in the flood plains of the Cagayan River. In the past four years, we experienced two 100-year floods, the worse of which submerged all but two of our 26 barangays. As I write (Wednesday morning), Alcala is being pummeled by Supertyphoon “Egay.” Our town folk are exhausted with anxiety. The memorable performance of a philharmonic orchestra that’s forever etched in our minds, will be balm to our weary souls as we journey through the ebb and flow of life.
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