Archive - Arts & Culture

 By NORMAN SISON NO, it’s not about the caffeine. Question: would you wait in line for 30 minutes and pay seven dollars for a cup of coffee? Most people will not, but there are who will. There are coffee drinkers, coffee lovers and coffee aficionados. For most people, it’s a drink. For others, it’s a

By PABLO A. TARIMAN IT is still a good decade for Filipino tenors some of whom still find time to sing in their home country even as they are active on the global opera stage. Overseas-based tenor Noel Velasco is in town for an outreach concert in Laoag City on January 26 and at the

By JOSEPH CORTES THERE is a sense of anticipation surrounding the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert on Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. The show, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of the country’s national orchestra, features a violin concerto specially commissioned to mark the occasion. In a country where the appreciation of classical music is in the minority,

   By PATRICK KING PASCUAL ARTS, music, cuisine and wine will spice up the celebration of Australia’s National Day in Manila this week. “There’s a lot going on between our two countries. The Australian Embassy in the Philippines is the 8th biggest embassy of Australia has anywhere. This is a substantial relationship between the Philippines

By WINNIE VELASQUEZ FOR more than forty years now, Betsy Westendorp has rendered huge canvases of lush blooms, exotic flora painted in situ in the vibrant hues of the seasons – nature in full splendour but also at its most harsh. She has done portraits of royalty, presidents, captains of industry – all larger than

By ELIZABETH  LOLARGA Photos by SPYKE PAT-OGAN HOW often does a movie come along that reflects the heart of Baguio that is invisible to the naked eye? Rarely, if not at all. And then comes Martin Masadao’s Anac ti Pating (an Iluko phrase roughly translated as “child of a shark”), written and directed by him

  Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA NOW here’s a lawyer who puts a shine on that litigious profession: Kay Malilong Isberto. By continuing to make trees and forests the subjects of her paintings (she recently held a solo show at San Beda Museum in Alabang Hills, Muntinlupa City), Isberto is able to promote a

Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA THE exhibition of mono-print portraits of 101 grandmothers still up at the BenCab Museum Print Gallery, in its deceptive simplicity, cries, “Women power, women rule!” Conceptualized by Thirteen Artists awardee Joey Vendiola Cobcobo in 2009, he told himself that he wanted a visual arts project that was important, had

Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA WHO was the woman who said that if she had realized earlier that grandmotherhood would bring her such unadulterated joy, she would’ve skipped marriage and motherhood altogether and gone ahead with being a lola first? Yay Padua-Olmedo, retired vice president of one of the Philippines’ biggest conglomerates, a teacher

  By YOLANDA L. PUNSALAN THE noisier, the better, the more prosperous.  This has been part of the cultural conditioning in welcoming the New  Year. But a canon of inspirational stories centering on New Year’s Day itself should  form part of the celebration arsenal as one looks forward to twelve months  of living dangerously or

By NORMAN SISON HUNDREDS troop to the Antipolo Cathedral in Antipolo City for the 8 p.m. mass, one of the many of marathon masses held in Catholic churches across the Philippines, celebrating Christmas. Flickering at the entrance are three Christmas lanterns in the shape of a star, known locally as parols. Meanwhile, about five kilometers

  By YOLANDA PUNZALAN THE theme of Christmas, the everlastingly great narrative of Christ’s nativity has become the inspiration of major creative works. Here are some of them, perfect gifts for loved ones and for yourself: The most popular Christmas–themed story is Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, immortalized by now and retold over generations, even

  By ELIZABETH LOLARGA Photos by CYNTHIA PAZ AND TONY LACABA LIGAYA Amilbangsa, cultural researcher and conservationist par excellence, dancer and doubtless a living national treasure, found a good way to pass on her dance instruction method to a new generation through the AlunAlun Dance Circle’s (AADC) Yuletide performance “Pangalay sa Boys’ Town” in Parang,

  By NORMAN SISON WITH a conductor’s baton in his right hand, a boy – no more than 12 years of age – leads a 40-piece orchestra to the cheerful tune of “Sleigh Ride”. Mind you, this is at a Christmas concert. But, no, the boy isn’t a child prodigy. About two minutes later, his

  By JOSEPH CORTES THE Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra’s recent concert “Deleon & Arutiunian” was a mixed bag of sorts. All the works performed that night were technically premieres because the PPO has no record of having played these pieces in its 39 years of existence. Two were tone poems, while the other two were virtuoso

  By PATRICK KING PASCUAL THE success story of  Socorro Cancio Ramos includes incidents of failure. Ramos is known more as Nanay Coring, founder and general manager of National Book Store, the leading retailer of school supplies, academic and  various kinds of books and everything in between. “I think it’s everybody’s purpose to achieve more,”

Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA IF the once moribund fine arts program of the Philippine Women’s University at the main campus on Taft Avenue, Manila, now enjoys a high profile, a lot of it has to do with its overhauled curriculum, marketing chops and the fairly new PWU School of Fine Arts and Design

  By PABLO A. TARIMAN IF Lola  Rosa were alive, she would have been 85 today. One of the unrealized film projects of Marilou Diaz-Abaya was one touching on the story of Ma. Rosa Luna Henson,  known as Lola Rosa, the first Filipina to tell her story as a comfort woman for the Imperial Japanese

  By WINNIE  VELASQUEZ THE Printmakers Association of the Philippines  opened its studios at the back of the Folk Arts Theater to give the public a peek at the fascinating world of printmaking in “Art by the Bay”  for the past three  Saturdays and will continue to do so this Saturday, Dec. 8. From 5

BY PABLO A. TARIMAN BALLET Manila has an interesting twin-bill for its holiday treat and with contrasting flavors at that. It opened with an austere, if, poignant Sonata (choreographed by Osias Barroso) to the full music of Elgar’s Sonata in E Minor, Opus 82 for violin and piano. Providing live music is British violinist Robert

  By PATRICK KING PASCUAL CEBU’S son comes home. Last Friday, Cebu held a National Thanksgiving Mass, to welcome back the statue San Pedro Calungsod after it was canonized last Oct. 21 by Pope Benedict XVI. An estimated 1.2 people filled the 27- hectare reclaimed South Road Properties (SRP) open field where a small temple

   By PABLO A. TARIMAN FILIPINO pianist Cecile Licad continued her phenomenal mastery of the Chopin and Liszt repertoire with yet another electrifying recital at the Calderwood Hall of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston last Sunday afternoon. American music critic David Patterson of the Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote that the pianist’s arresting velocity

By JOSEPH CORTES IN every part of the world that Iraqi oud master Naseer Shamma goes to, he makes an effort to familiarize himself with the local culture and music. By getting to know the traditional music of a country, he hopes to find ways of introducing the Arabic instrument into the local sound mix

By WINNIE VELASQUEZ
IT all started on a lark but sometimes the best ideas come from a restless mind that finds stimulation in a new environment. Public defender Xilca (pronounced Chill-ka) Alvarez-Protacio, 31, was at a crossroads in her life two years ago when she attended a forum organized by the Gawad Kalinga Center for Social Innovation (GK-CSI).