Archive - Arts & Culture

THE University of Santo Tomas (UST) Conservatory of Music has many reasons to celebrate its 65th year. First, it is the only music school which has mounted two full-length operas (Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” and Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus”) in a span of two years, showcasing the best musical talents of the conservatory.

PLAYING to please the jury is no sure way to win an international piano competition, multi-awarded Filipino pianist Albert Tiu said in a recent interview with the Singapore music news agency PianoMania.

By CENTER FOR MEDIA ADVOCACY
AFTER years of languishing in jail, some 150 overseas Filipino workers have been granted amnesty by Saudi Arabia King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz and may finally be repatriated by the government. In February last year, the OFWs in Al Hair Central Jail sent several text messages through the SOS SMS Helpline of the Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA) requesting assistance in facilitating their immediate mass repatriation.

TIMELESS is the word for superior jazz vocalists Jacqui Magno and Richard Merk. The rare singing tandem Jacqui and RichardMerk timed their concert “My Foolish Heart” at a deadly date (Valentine's Day) when those on romantic dates were off at more popular gigs around town.

By ARTHA KIRA PAREDES
THE 1986 People Power Revolution, also known as EDSA 1, is memorable to Filipinos who have experienced living under the Marcos dictatorship. But what does this historic event mean to young people who belong to the post-EDSA I generation?

THE classic Puccini opera “La Boheme,” which opened in Turin, Italy in 1896 on the year Jose Rizal was executed in Bagumbayan (now Rizal Park), Manila, has obviously inspired a generation of music lovers not just in the realm of opera.

LIKE acclaimed French actress Isabelle Huppert, multi-awarded director Brillante Mendoza is not afraid to confront the dark side of life. Mendoza’s films, like “Masahista,” “Serbis,” and “Kinatay,” show the other side of a predominantly Catholic country. “Kinatay” won for him the best director award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Huppert, on the other hand, won the 2001 Cannes Best Actress award for the role of the cold and unemotional piano teacher.

IT'S a most valuable brown bag because it contains offerings that are priceless: love and sacrifice. Brown Bag Auction is one of the activities undertaken by Mentor Philippines, a group of young urban professionals tapped by the Overseas Workers and Welfare Administration to mentor OWWA college scholars, many of them from the provinces to adjust to college life.

MANY Filipinos do not know that 19-year-old violinist Diomedes Saraza, Jr., the latest star soloist of the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, is the first Filipino Outstanding Academic Achievement awardee of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Education Awards Program.

THE adjective "imeldific" connotes over-the-top extravagance and a graspingly ambitious, opulent lifestyle. It derives its origin from the fallen cultural czarina and former First Lady Imelda R. Marcos.

WITH a generation that goes wild over Justin Bieber, Charice Pempengco, Bamboo, River Maya and Parokya ni Edgar, how can the rondalla survive and prevail in the Philippine music scene?

A worthy component of “Ikaw Ang Pag-ibig,” the latest film of Marilou Diaz-Abaya, is not just the excellent story and a superb cast but the profoundly moving musical scoring of Nonong Buencamino.

THE best female artist at the recently concluded first Ilonggo Music Awards in Iloilo City is not an Ilonggo but a Karay-a. Singer-composer Rubie Rizza (who is Rubie Rizza Estaris-Villavert when she’s not performing) comes from neighboring Antique province, but her song “Ti Ano Karon?” (So What Now?) won the votes from the Ilonggos, making her the true diva of original Kinaray-a music (OKM).

FIFTEEN-year-old Carlo woke up at 5 a.m last Sunday. While he knew it wasn’t a school day, he got up in his usual way asking for his instant pancit canton for breakfast. There was no resistance this time wearing his P.E. uniform that normally he isn’t so comfortable with. He was off to Mall of Asia at sunrise to join “Angels Walk.”

AS of latest figures, the 36-year-old Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) has surpassed the P5-billion mark when it ended its two-week run last January 7. This year’s MMFF gross income broke the previous years’ figures, which were 437 million in 2009 and a little over P230 million in 2008.

WHY is the Philippines lagging behind in the sports Olympics while it continues to clobber small and big countries in the choral Olympiad? In the last two years, the country saw its leading choirs winning one international prize after another, the latest of which was the Philippine Madrigal Singers’ victory at the prestigious European Grand Prix for Choral Singing.

SOMETIMES, his house along Canillas Street in Leon town of Iloilo overflows with students from the University of the Philippines in the Visayas, or with members of the historical council from Antique.

PIANIST Hector Martinez is the typical Filipino musician who got hooked on music, studied abroad, joined competitions and then, on the onset of the world-wide economic slump, had to find ways to survive to support his craft. Now based in the United States, Martinez came home recently to play a well-nuanced program of Chopin’s Scherzos and Ballades at the RCBC Hall in Manila.