The MSO season begins with the first concert “Music for Peace” on May 24 at the Aliw Theater, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the post-Liberation MSO concerts organized between 1945 and 1946. Violin soloist Emanuel John Villarin, a Manila Symphony Junior Orchestra pioneer member, will play Dvořák’s “Symphony No. 9 — From the New World” and German composer-pianist Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major Op. 61. Villarin will be coming home from Berlin, where he’s on a scholarship, to do the show with conductor Marlon Chen, MSO’s current music director and principal conductor.

The tribute was grand as it was solemn with La Aunor’s flag-draped coffin resting on a bed of white flowers with her National Artist medallion blending with the colors of the Philippine flag.

The death of Ate Guy has filled our social media feeds with exactly the history that her Noranians live off, and it is one that too many of us failed to appreciate while she was alive, more focused as we were on the controversies and issues.