Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
You could say it was a Dumaguete kind of evening. Very D.I.Y. Very chill. So cultural. Inside Ritual—the zero-waste grocery store at the Arts and Design Collective Dumaguete along E.J. Blanco Drive, which now apparently moonlights as a performance space—monobloc chairs were being unstacked and arranged not by some invisible stage crew, but by the musicians about to do mini-concert. There was something disarming about seeing Reginald Bernaldez and Gonzalo Misa setting down chairs like they’re also in charge of the barangay fiesta seating plan. It was like catching superheroes folding laundry before saving the day.
The intimacy was immediate, the space itself smelling faintly of laurel, cinnamon, lye, baking soda, and laundry soap. This wasn’t a concert hall; it was a living room with a conscience, and last August 9, it belongs to five of Dumaguete’s best musicians.
The night began with François Champion’s “Gavotte” and Joseph Kuffner’s “Andantino,” a duet between Venus Seno-Bernaldez on the flute and Reggie Bernaldez on the guitar. The pairing was like wind over water: the flute’s clear silver thread sailing over the calm ripples of the guitar—which Reggie later acknowledged: “The flute really overpowers the guitar. Which is why I am in tandem with my wife, Venus,” he joked to the appreciative crowd. I really don’t know much about classical guitar beyond the occasional recitals I attend, but I can tell when musicians are listening to each other to create a good duet. In “Andantino,” Venus leaned ever so slightly toward Reggie in the softer passages, and his playing seemed to rise under hers. I know these two from my college days, and it was fantastic to see them play together again.
Then Reggie himself took to the stage alone for Francisco Tárrega’s “Capricho Árabe”—a piece whose title promised Moorish longing and delivered exactly that. The opening was a delicate question, like a traveler at the edge of a strange city; halfway through, the melody blossoms into something almost defiant. By the time Reggie closed with Miguel Llobet’s “Cançó del Lladre,” I was convinced the titular thief was also a romantic one, stealing my heart in that small room at Ritual.
Rav Rocamora soon stepped in next with Ariel Ramírez’s “Balada Para Martín Fierro.” Kuya Rav has always struck me as a gentle presence—maybe from those childhood days I’ve known of him as a fellow churchmate and elder at Calvary Chapel—but his guitar here was a storyteller’s grit. The piece unspooled like an epic poem, tender in one phrase and stormy in the next. With Dilermando Reis’ “Eterna Saudade,” he offered a quieter ache, a saudade so precise it felt like the memory of a special late afternoon.
Arnold Franke followed with Abel Carlevaro’s “Preludios Americanos,” and here the music felt almost painterly—expressionistic and experimental. There was something in Arnold’s posture—shoulders relaxed, gaze steady—that made the complexity of his playing look deceptively easy. I would later learn he studied music in Tilburg, Netherlands, but in that moment of his playing, he was the embodiment of the naturalness of his sound.
And then there was Gonzalo Misa, who stormed in with Nikita Koshkin’s “Usher Waltz,” a piece as dramatic as its literary inspiration—Edgar Alan Poe’s iconic story. It was gothic and playful, moody and whimsical, and Gonzalo leaned into every shift in tempo like an actor changing masks mid-scene. Watching his fingers was dizzying; they darted, paused, and darted again like they were in on some private world.
For the finale, Gonzalo and Arnold paired up for Christian Gottlieb Scheidler’s “Sonata in D Major.” They wielded two antique guitars, and with these had a conversation that was sometimes harmonious, sometimes argumentative, and always fascinating. The first movement felt like two old friends recalling an adventure; the second was like those same friends, years later, laughing at how serious they used to be.
When the last chord faded, there was roaring applause from the small audience who gathered at Ritual—a warm, sustained clapping, the kind that said: “We know you. We see you. Thank you for making this city more beautiful tonight.”
Outside Ritual that Saturday night, the air was cool. I think of how, in this small city by the sea, music doesn’t always need a proscenium or velvet seats for magic to happen. Sometimes it only needs five friends, a grocery that believes in zero waste, and a few rented monobloc chairs back. And for all my confessed ignorance about classical guitar technique, I left certain of one thing: when Dumaguete’s finest play, the music is never just notes. It is the whole city, plucked and strummed into being.
There is a word in music that feels like an apt description for the way pianist Horacio Nuguid plays: “cantabile”—which means the smooth quality of making the instrument sing. This was the thought that stayed with me through Sound Scapes, his piano recital of rare and resplendent works from the Filipino classical repertoire, which unfolded simply and beautifully on the Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium stage last 6 August 2025—a respite we didn’t think we needed in the middle of the week. In an age where music-making often feels like a gladiatorial sport—faster, louder, more technically dazzling—Nuguid sat before the instrument with the calm assurance of someone who had nothing to prove. And in that unhurried humility, there was magic.
Nuguid is no stranger to the world’s stages. Trained at the University of Santo Tomas, he would later take his craft to the University of Northern Iowa and to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His career has taken him from solo recitals to orchestral collaborations in the Philippines, Mexico, and the United States, and into close musical partnerships with distinguished singers and instrumentalists.
As artistic director of the Rochester Chamber Music Society, he has carved out a space for music-making that is both intimate and expansive. Honors have followed—among them the Ardee Award for outstanding artist in Rochester—and so has a commitment to teaching: master classes across continents, decades of shaping young pianists at the Young Artist World Piano Festival in Minnesota, and mentorship at the Philippine High School for the Arts. Recently, he has taken on the role of co-artistic director at the Bethel University Summer Piano Academy, continuing the work of nurturing the next generation, even as he brings the voices of our past composers back into the light.
It is with that pedigree that Nuguid makes his debut in Dumaguete, on the Luce stage. The program of Sound Scapes was itself an act of reclamation, designed that way by the pianist. According to him, in the Philippines, so much of our music’s history lies in dust and disappearance—scores lost to war, to neglect, to the indifference of cultural gatekeepers. Nuguid has made it his mission to retrieve these works from obscurity, curating and publishing an anthology—Philippine Piano Pieces (2023)—that has suddenly opened a long-closed window into our pianistic past. Sound Scapes at the Luce was the living and breathing embodiment of that project: nine pieces by nine Filipino composers, spanning decades, styles, and sensibilities, each given a voice on this night in Dumaguete. He proceeded through the program like a lecturer, introducing the importance of each piece at the podium, and then sitting down before the grand piano to demonstrate the wonderfully musicality he had just described.
From the very first notes of “Caricias (Danza)” by Juan de Saliagun Hernandez (1881–1945), who was known as a composer of dances, marches, and music for theatrical performances, it was clear that Nuguid was not merely reproducing what was on the score. His left hand, rich with warm bass resonance, grounded the dance’s rhythm; his right hand let the melody float in the air with limpid clarity. The contrast was a quiet marvel—you could almost “see” the separation of musical notes, and yet they conversed so naturally.
“Poeme” by Carmencita Arambulo (1938–2023) was another personal highlight for me. The 1957 piece is, like what it subtitle claims, “a song without words,” which Nuguid rendered with a tenderness that felt almost private, like overhearing someone’s cherished memory. He let the melody breathe, resisting the temptation to rush. At his age—seasoned, yes, with perhaps the occasional elasticity in tempo—there was no need for metronomic precision. Instead, there was the deeper rhythm of someone shaping a phrase to match the heartbeat of this beautiful song.
“Okaka (Theme and Variations)” by Rodolfo Cornejo (1909–1991) was the program’s playful centerpiece, an intricate work that tested the pianist’s dexterity and interpretive range. Nuguid navigated its shifting moods with ease, from the almost childlike charm of the theme to the more dramatic, harmonically adventurous variations. And then there was “Bontok Ili” by Rosendo Santos Jr. (1922–1994), a piece steeped in indigenous echoes, where Nuguid’s left-hand ostinatos—a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm—pulsed like ritual drumbeats while the right hand spun modal melodies like threads of smoke.
One of the evening’s most quietly moving moments, at least for me, was “Meditacion (Nocturno)” by Filemon Sotto (1872–1966). Here, Nuguid leaned into the music’s meditative intent, letting each chord shimmer and fade, as if allowing the audience to listen not only to the sound but also to the silence that followed. In contrast, “Tarantelle No. 2” by Lucino Sacramento (1908–1984), which the composer wrote for a NAMCYA competition in 1978, burst forth with kinetic energy—and though Nuguid’s tempo was, by necessity, tempered, the rhythmic drive and the joy in the playing were intact.
When Nuguid arrived at “Kundiman” by Felipe Padilla de Leon (1912–1992), the recital shifted into something unmistakably Filipino. The bittersweet lyricism, the gentle swells of emotion… Nuguid played it as though telling a love story across generations. Nuguid’s rendition of “Malikmata” by Antonio Molina (1894–1980) shimmered with impressionistic colors, like a heavy dream one tries to recall in the morning light, unsettling but also bemusing. And finally, “Mayon (Fantasia de Concierto)” by Francisco Buencamino Sr. (1883–1952) closed the concert with a sense of Pinoy grandeur, its elevated folksiness made beautiful with Nuguid weaving together the virtuosity and lyricism that mark the best of our piano literature.
What struck me most, across all these works, was the utter lack of pretension in Nuguid’s playing. Nuguid did not play to impress. He played because this music deserved to be heard again. He played because these scores—many of them once teetering on the edge of oblivion—still had beauty to give. He played because, quite simply, he loved them. And we, listening, were made to love them too.
There were no flamboyant gestures, no exaggerated rubatos meant to elicit gasps. Even the occasional unevenness in tempo seemed part of the music’s lived-in honesty. In an era obsessed with perfection, this was a concert that embraced humanity—its frailty, yes, but also its capacity for grace.
By the final applause—and I was really surprised by the gusto of the audience after many years of watching piano recitals eliciting only tepid responses—I realized what Sound Scapes truly was: not just a recital, but an act of cultural memory. Nuguid had taken us on a journey through our own musical heritage, dusting off forgotten pages and giving them breath again. And as we filed out of the Luce, it felt less like leaving a performance and more like emerging from a long, nourishing conversation, one where every melody had been clear, every note had mattered, and the silences between them had spoken volumes.
Truth to tell, I was not really aware of Philippine piano music much until last Wednesday night. What the concert taught me is that it is a most curious and beautiful thing, a garden of melodies where Spanish-European grace, American verve, and the deep earthiness of our own indigenous rhythms mingle in unexpected bloom. (Forgive the flowery metaphor!) But apparently, like many gardens in our history, much of it has been left untended, its flowers hidden from view. The tragedy is partly logistical: pianists have simply not had access to the printed scores. The few that made it into print—often through the composer’s own efforts—have long since slipped out of circulation, their surviving copies asleep in library archives, or kept as delicate heirlooms, or ravaged by World War II, a fraught period when untold manuscripts and printed scores vanished in the fire and rubble.
But Nuguid’s work tells us that this story does not end in loss. In recent years, there has been a gathering tide of interest in finding these scattered notes, in piecing together a legacy nearly lost. And in August 2023, Nuguid stepped into this story with something remarkable: a published anthology of twenty-five piano pieces by sixteen Filipino composers, each work lovingly rescued, critically edited, and annotated for a new generation. The book and the concert are both an act of scholarship and an act of devotion.
You can listen to most of these piece in Horacio Nuguid’s YouTube channel. The concert was sponsored by the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council. Thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez for explaining the technicalities of the piano-playing for me.
Living in the present is sometimes as simple as doing OBT at night with the s.o., while listening to our playlists on Spotify. There's no greater, simpler pleasure, and what one gets is understated, frills-free happiness. Just you, the road, good music, and someone you love beside you.
I love the fact that in Dumaguete, I can tell myself: “I want to end this busy week by watching opera.” And watch I did, straight from my last class of the day.
In the photo, that’s Rodolfo and Mimi in this barebones production of Puccini’s La Boheme at Silliman University’s Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium, presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and featuring the performers from Viva Voce Voice Lab. The entire opera was staged, but it was not a full-fledged production — there was no orchestra [only a piano] and there were no elaborate costumes — but all there was were performance, gusto, and the beauty of the human voice. Often, that’s enough.
The show was packaged as an educational outreach program, to teach contemporary Filipino audiences about what opera is all about, and to make a traditionally daunting art form be accessible to those who have only heard about what opera is like and are too intimidated to watch any. Hence, the helpful introduction by artistic director Camille Lopez Molina before the show began [she was very funny]. Hence, the simplicity of the staging. Hence, the supertitles projected on screen that directly translated the Italian lyrics the performers were singing.
Truth to tell, this was my first opera, and although it was done in this format, I was grateful for what it was — because everyone in the audience truly enjoyed the musical spectacle onstage: an audience of mostly students awww’d at the lighting quick romance between the two leads, arrrgh’d at the seeming red-flagness of Rodolfo when he wanted to break up with Mimi, and ohhhh’d at Mimi’s final demise.
[Molina also explained that the company specifically sought out a performance at the Luce because this was Viva Voce’s experiment with raw voice projection, no amplification, in a suitable theater: the Luce remains the only theater in the country with the best acoustics.]
I can readily tell when a Luce audience is appreciative [and Dumaguete is notoriously hard to please], and tonight was one for the books.
At the end, I also realized that this show signaled the end of the pandemic for me. At least culturally speaking. The last show I watched at the Luce before lockdown started in 2020 was Rent, the Jonathan Larson musical that borrows heavily from La Boheme. Four year later, I am watching the OG material on the same stage. My pandemic has been properly bookended.
P.S. It’s now funny to me that when I listened to opera before, the Italian lyrics and the melodic voice made me think they were singing of very important pronouncements. Now I know that they’re just singing of the most mundane things, like: “I left a pink bonnet underneath your pillow. Please pack it for me.”
I maintain a playlist on Spotify that I totally love. And which I constantly play, especially if I want to feel energetic for the day’s slate of work. It’s called “Gym Goddesses of Music,” because this was my cardio soundtrack. I don’t go to gym anymore, but I still listen to this playlist religiously. It has Madonna in it, and Robyn, and Sia, Icona Pop and Charlie XCX, Sophie Ellis Bextor, etc. [And also Beck, for some reason, hahaha.] My fave: Sandra Bernhard’s cover of “You Make Me Feel” by Sylvester.
I just watched Rob Esptein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music (2023), their documentary of that groundbreaking, awe-inspiring 24-hour concert marathon that the theatre artist Taylor Mac undertook in 2016, and I’m amazed. [I think I might have to write a longer essay on immersive art soon, just to clarify my thoughts on this and to sort out my feelings.] This documentary makes me wish I could have been there in person, be part of the audience of this powerful, immersive 24-hour performance. It must have been blissfully exhaustive, the way great things should be experienced. But this documentary will have to do, abbreviated though it necessarily must be.
Also: Isn’t it amazing that Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have given us some of the best documentaries about queer life and culture in the past few decades? [Consider these: Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives, The Times of Harvey Milk, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Celluloid Closet, Paragraph 175, and State of Pride.] Even their fictional forays [Howl and Lovelace] are important, even if unremembered. I’m amazed by this duo.
The thing I most admire about Harry Belafonte was his capacity to walk away, even when movie stardom was at hand, and did not make movies in the 1960s for reasons that curtailed his principles, choosing only to come back in 1972. He was also a popular singer, but he soon chose not to make music either for similar reasons. But the one thing he never shied away from was his activism in the civil rights movement. He knew when to let go, and why to stay. Rest in peace, Harry Belafonte [1927-2023].
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In Dumaguete, The Arts Flourish Part 11: The Dumaguete Sound
Diomar Abrio is feeling ambitious. The longtime director of the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council [CAC] and a faculty member at the College of Performing and Visual Arts [COPVA] is brewing a plan, something he has dreamed of doing in recent years but feels compelled to finally accomplish it in 2023. In many ways, all that he has done in the name of cultural work for Silliman University, and Dumaguete in general, has led to this. Some years ago, he established an annual showcase of traditional Visayan music and dance, named Himig at Sayaw, which was later adopted by the National Committee on Music of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts [which he served for many years] into a project called Musikapuluhan. He has been trying to popularize Visayan folk music for a while now, and recently published a new edition of Priscilla Magdamo’s seminal work on Visayan folk songs, mining it for a variety of online performances during the pandemic.
This time, he is after something else. He wants to establish a choral festival in Dumaguete, and he wants the world to participate in it.
Call it inspired by pandemic restrictions, but that need to invite the world to Dumaguete is in many ways a cultural move that’s also partly therapy. When Typhoon Odette came with relentless fury in December 2021 in the middle of a raging pandemic, Mr. Abrio lost almost everything in the house he shared with his family in Barangay Suba in Manjuyod, a town north of Dumaguete. He is still traumatized by the memory of that awful night—the sound of the terrible wind, the cries of neighbors drowning in the flood, the sight of his car submerged in deep mud once morning came. He managed to hitch a ride on a motorcycle bound for Dumaguete to buy medicines for his family, and only when he entered the premises of a pharmacy did the reality of the tragedy sink in: right then and there, by the pharmacy’s door, he broke down and cried. But he has never been one to dwell too much on pain and loss and discomfort. Among CAC people, he is known as one who best rolls with the punches, and who makes things happen despite all the setbacks and red tape that is laid out for him whenever there are cultural events to be planned and executed. He is unassuming about it—but he does know what he wants. And now, he wants this: an international choral festival in Dumaguete, the pandemic be damned.
He has a name for it already. The Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez International Choral Festival, named after a beloved music mentor to many in Dumaguete, and a legend in choral music circles—but someone whose due has been overlooked for many years with regards her contribution to Philippine music.
Which is what usually happens when it comes to culture in Dumaguete—a veritable regional powerhouse that has produced many of the greats in Philippine arts [as well as pioneering many cultural efforts with national impact], but remains sadly unacknowledged by the gatekeepers in Manila. A quick search through the recent edition of the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, for example, attests to this. In the music volume, there is nothing on Priscilla Magdamo [but there is an entry to “Ili-ili Tulog Anay” mentioning her as the primary collector of the song from field work], nothing on Albert Faurot, nothing on Constantino Bernardez, nothing on the Vistas, nothing on William Pfeiffer [but there is mention of him in the article on “research in music”], on our pioneering efforts in ethnomusicology and on our pioneering programs in choral music in the country, among others.
Not that she wants to measure her cultural legacy with an encyclopedia entry, but Ms. Visa-Suarez and her ilk clearly deserve recognition. Since she came back from the United States in 1989 after earning her masters in choral conducting from the Combs College of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ms. Vista-Suarez has been steady in remaking the platform for cultural work at Silliman University [she was head of the CAC for many years, and steered efforts to put in print the university’s then non-existent cultural policies]. She has also gone about solidifying the musical heritage of Dumaguete—from her leadership of the famed Campus Choristers as well as Ating Pamana, to her work as musical director of many musicals at the Luce; from her ministry as conductor of church choirs, to her occasional forays into piano-playing. In her choral work, she has become a local legend—credited by her disciples of coming up with a distinctive sound she simply calls “timpla,” something that she has arrived at with her music after witnessing performances by many “top” choirs and reeling from their insistence that loud is good. She refuses to believe a choir’s prowess is measured by voices belting out, which may seem to unknowing audiences like a Sensurround barrage, but to her utterly lacks grace and restraint and musicality and … timpla.
It is this “timpla” that Dumaguete music is largely about. What it is, to be definitive about it, is a search for the best possible sound that comes from the confluence, and blending, of voices. Broadly, we can also take it to mean a confluence of genres and of efforts. Of the latter, the Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez International Choral Festival becomes the litmus test: a pandemic baby, it will the first international musical event in Dumaguete to be held in what increasingly seems to be the post-pandemic period. A lot hinges on its success, but Mr. Abrio is nothing but determined.
The people behind the CAC—and by and large the musical denizens of Silliman’s COPVA—has been largely responsible for the continued relevance of classical music in Dumaguete performance spaces, although it occasionally dips into the contemporary with concerts of pop favorites by its resident companies [including the Silliman University Marching Band, the Orkestra Sin Arco, the Campus Choristers, the Men’s Glee Club, the Women’s Ensemble, and others], and with its annual holding of the Valentine Songwriting Competition, the oldest musical competition of its kind in the Philippines. [In 2023, the VSC turns 35 years old.]
But the contemporary music scene, for the most part, is the province of the bands and performers behind the Belltower Project—although many of them are products of COPVA as well. Since 2013, when it was founded by Hope Tinambacan and his brother Juni Jay, Jan Barga, Franber Candia, and the Trasmonte twins Dave and Clark to be a community of local musicians helping each other drive forward the Dumaguete music scene, the Belltower Project has been a communal effort at determining the Dumaguete sound, at least in terms of popular music. It has done this by undertaking an ambitious [and supposedly] yearly project, which is putting out anthology albums featuring original compositions by a well-curated playlist of Oriental Negrense singers and bands, all of them of varied musical inclinations, from reggae to ska, from shoegaze to electronica, from hard metal to café ballads. [Their efforts have also led to the creation of a 2015 stage musical, Scharon Mani, which featured songs from the Belltower Project albums.] These albums that came out over the years were known primarily by their ordinal titles, from Uno to Cinco, and their launches were carefully coordinated concerts that regularly drew in massive crowds of steadfast fans. But efforts largely came to a halt because some of its masterminds [and some bands as well] had to leave Dumaguete to pursue professional lives elsewhere. This included Hope Tinambacan who had to temporarily leave for Singapore for theatre studies in 2016, and Natalie Curran, who had to go back home to Luxembourg after finishing her psychology studies at Silliman. But many of the bands remained—from Enchi to Hopia, from Finpot to 5Volts, from The Chocodog Invasion to Trigger Gypsies, from Odd to HNO2, from Crickets Playground to Modern Cassette, from Arnold Cristopher to N.A.N.A., and many others. Some, like Wilfreedo, have gone on to national fame. All of them were enjoying regular gigs before the pandemic, and many other local singers and groups [such as Kyle Juliano and Midnasty and the twins Zack x Zeph, and hiphop artists Kalamay Papi and Massiah] were being snapped up by major recording companies in Manila, or gaining national attention for their performances and videos.
The pandemic virtually put a stop to most of these things. Gone were the concerts. Gone were the albums. Gone were the gigs at the usual places such as Hayahay or El Amigo or Daddy Don’s. The Belltower Project remained in hiatus—its members scrambling to make a living, or to do something else in the long pause of three years. [One opened a bread-and-barbecue joint that became an instant pandemic success.] By the second year of the pandemic, in 2021, some places returned to restricted operations, and were inviting once more performers to provide musical entertainment for patrons—like Caña at The Bricks Hotel, or for a while at the defunct Sinati at The Flying Fish Hostel. But these all paled in comparison to the pre-pandemic musical scene. The only light that remained were the musical shows the CAC was offering, usually via the internet—and only because Silliman University was still operational despite being largely online, and part of its educational mandate was to provide a cultural component to the Silliman academic experience.
In many ways, the characteristics of musical performances—“have instrument, have space, will play”—enabled CAC to program shows that felt ready-made for a streaming audience, the only way it could be done during the pandemic. The compromise was obvious: it could not devote equal programming to other art forms like the literary arts or visual arts or cinema like it used to—but music and dance and a bit of theatre it could. [Architecture is always hard to program.] The CAC started what it called its “virtual cultural season” in August 2020—which by then had people losing the pre-pandemic wishful thinking that “all of these would be over by June”—by staging an annual cultural staple that brings together Silliman performers in themed concerts, Silliman Performs. For this year, the show was subtitled Hope for All Mankind. Scheduled to begin streaming on CAC’s Facebook page on August 22nd, it featured a smorgasbord of artists and groups of all stripes, including the SU String Ensemble, SUACONA Chorale, Kwerdas, Orkestra Sin Arco, Men’s Glee Club, Women’s Ensemble, Silliman University Band, SU Campus Choristers, SU Dance Troupe, and the SU Gratitude and Goodwill Ambassadors. It also had appearances by writers Alfred Yuson and Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas, as well as Alexandra Tuale, the Pacalioga Family, Beth Castillo-Winsor, Lora Espancho, Maria Elcon Kleine Koerkamp, Katrina Marie Saga, and representatives of Silliman alumni chapters in UAE, Hawaii, Thailand, and others. The mélange of the enterprise was perhaps a necessary answer to the pandemic ravages, which was still at its voracious peak—and it was basically a call for solidarity and community, a balm for frayed nerves, and a nostalgia trip for those seeking that kind of comfort.
Later on, in October 2020, CAC began putting on streaming versions of older shows, like Ampalaya the Musical, the Michael Dadap play based on the children’s book by Augie Rivera Jr., and The Story of Dumpawa’s Lullaby in October 2020, a musical revue I wrote based on Folk Songs of the Visayas by Priscilla Magdamo with a Manobo tale of a rat in search of a lullaby to bookend it. In November, it streamed Timeless Arias, showcasing operatic performances by COPVA musical artists. In December, it streamed Gleeful Christmas, featuring the Campus Choristers, the Men’s Glee Club, the Women’s Ensemble, the Concert Band, and the String Ensemble.
Around this time, it was gearing up for the launch of the first-ever virtual edition of the Valentine Songwriting Competition, scheduled for streaming on February 2021—this time, tweaking the regular format of the contest by focusing on the award for an overall Best Song [and scuttling the original Best Composer, Best Interpreter, and Best Arranger awards in the process], but also adding a Best Music Video award. It was all reflective of the pandemic lockdown necessities. Even in the challenges of the pandemic, the usual slate of ten finalists was filled. A People’s Choice category was also tacked on. On competition date, the song “When Quarantine Ends” by Shanice Nicole Caballes won the People’s Choice award, with Melchizedek Lozarita II’s “Huling Yakap” winning both Best Song and Best Music Video—a windfall of P30,000 cash prize [a third of that for the latter award].
Also in February 2021, true to the Zoom-centered cultural productions common of the time, Mr. Abrio would also organize for the CAC a webinar on “Accessing Visayan Folksongs as Pedagogical Resources for Music and Mother Tongue-Based Instruction,” together with Ms. Vista-Suarez and Matilda Limbaga-Erojo as facilitators. Around this time, the CAC finally put the finishing touches on its own website—which was many years in conception, but took a pandemic to finally put to reality: here, patrons could be invited to buy virtual tickets, and also to watch the streaming shows. Its first show using the website was a concert of Filipino art songs titled Kundiman at Iba Pa in March, again featuring singers from COPVA and other units in Silliman. In April, it streamed Piknik, a piano concert celebrating the 80th anniversary of Silliman’s Piano Program—“covering a wide range of genres from the masterful classical solos, arrangement of kundiman and folk songs, up to the sweeping OPM ballads,” and featuring many of the talented alumni of that program, including Gina Raakin, Enrico Riconalla, Christian Gonzales, Charles Abing, Casmelyn Quicoy, Allen Diadem Chesed Jovita, Alexis Faye Pal, Agape Manigsaca-Labuntog, Ricardo Abapo Jr., Winfred Quir, Romer Pielago, Michelle Dana Sabellina, Joji Jumawan Tonko, Lemoine Rey Poligrates, Kent Luigi Orbeta, Johann Rey Beira, Guide Dadang, Erik Johann Riconalla, and of course, the mother-daughter tandem of Isabel Dimaya Vista and Elizabeth Susan Vista Suarez. In May, to celebrate 80 years of COPVA’s Voice Department, CAC streamed Tinubdanan: Usa Ka Pasundayag nga Birtwal sa Atong Mga Huning Kabilin, a show “crafted to revive and relive the beauty and existence of Visayan folk songs as these songs born from the womb of our Visayan culture slowly become forgotten.”
In August, the CAC opened its 59th cultural season with another virtual programming, starting with Silliman Performs: Cradle of Faith, Justice, and Culture—and by “cradle” it meant the Silliman Amphitheatre, the space in campus in front of the Silliman Church which originated many of the university’s cultural programs from its beginning decades, and which in 2021 was turning a hundred years old. It was a momentous occasion to showcase Silliman performing arts, even if it was still a streamed event—but it also boasted of online appearances by Lea Salonga, Gary Valenciano, and National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab, who has maintained a close connection with the music people at Silliman over many decades.
In October, CAC streamed Bisayaw: A Visayan Folk Dance Festival, featuring the dance repertoire of the SU Dance Troupe and the musical gifts of the SU Rondalla. In November, it streamed Reverie: A Tapestry of Celebrated Art Songs, performed and recorded live at the Romeo P. Ariniego Art Gallery, billed as the “first full production concert in the venue,” and featuring the Cantare Vocé quintet led by soprano Katrina Marie Saga, together with the SU String Ensemble and SU Campus Choristers under Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez, and featuring the Philippine Madrigal Singers’ Mark Anthony Carpio. In December, it streamed Jazz Christmas, featuring the Silliman University Jazz Band under Joseph Albert Basa.
By February 2022, almost a full two years since the lockdowns began and with the pandemic showing no signs of slowing, the Valentine Songwriting Competition, which had been faithfully staged at the Luce for many years, did not show up on the cultural calendar—save for a February 18 showcase, titled Of Love, Music, and Lyrics: Original Music Compositions, which aimed to celebrate the 30-year stretch of the long-running competition. But, seemingly guilted into reconsidering a Valentine season without the annual competition, a real contest was finally slated for March 13—and tagged the understandable lateness in scheduling as “never too late for love songs!” The same two categories from the previous year’s competition were retained, with Cris Aguilar winning Best Song for “Closer,” and Adrien Rey Urciada winning Best Music Video for “Mahay.”
In April, CAC streamed Sonic Quest, a showcase of original compositions and arrangements by Silliman composers, including Jovy Leo O. Mulaan, Kaye Bernadette Banguis, Miguel Dizo, Janus Arthur [Onin], Myo Aung, Jhon James Dayak, Levi Alaban, Lee Albertino “Chino” Añiga, Odoni Pestelos, Jem Talaroc, and Algernon Van Peel. In May, it streamed Ating Pamana/Our Heritage, a celebration of Filipino music and dance heritage, including creative interpretations of beloved Original Pilipino Music. In July, it streamed a replay of Reverie: A Tapestry of Celebrated Art Songs. In August, CAC hosted a lecture demonstration and concert of the McClosky Institute of Voice, featuring Priscilla Magdamo.
Also that August, a pandemic milestone. After more than two years of performing virtually, CAC’s cultural calendar was now doing a shift: it was returning to the Luce Auditorium. The herald of that return was Silliman Performs: Cantate Domino, playing on August 25th and 26th, and featuring many of the performers that have endeavored to continue a viable cultural program online. In October, CAC co-sponsored with the CCP a program titled The Balitaw of Negros Oriental, a look at the extemporaneous expression of traditional Visayan courtship, featuring balitaw performers from Maloh, Siaton; Jimalalud High School; Sook, Ayungon; and Dumaguete City High School. In November, it hosted a music theory workshop with Maestro Ryan Cayabyab, who was returning to Dumaguete for the first time in person since December 2018. In December, the organizers behind the Valentine Songwriting Competition launched a return to normal programming by presenting Pagdasig sa Gugma: Love Through the Ages, an open-mic event at the Ariniego Art Gallery foyer. Later that month, CAC would restage Jazz Christmas with the Silliman University Big Band, this time with a full production at the Luce Auditorium.
The return of the Valentine Songwriting Competition to the Luce stage in February 2023 also meant a return to the old categories—with prizes for Best Composition, Best Arrangement, and Best Interpretation, and the subsequent retirement of the Best Music Video category. Julia Faith Joaquin won for the song “Pangandoy,” arranged by Jules Steven Josol. Gabrielle Moreno won Best Interpretation for her performance of her song “Mangga,” perhaps the first horny song ever sung on the VSC stage, arranged by John Rafael Doroteo. And Natalya Songcal won Best Arrangement for the song “Moonlit Dew,” composed by Jeyah Mae Culanag. Later that month, Musikapuluhan would also return in full force at the Luce, this time with a series of concerts titled Keep the Music Playing: Young Artists Series, with shows featuring Sara Maria Gonzales on the violin, John Paolo Anorico on the cello, and Ricardo Abapo Jr. on the piano on the 24th; Gabriel Allan and Ferros Paguirigan in The Chopin I Love: A Piano Concert on the 25th; and Michael Angelo Valenciano on the 26th. The program culminated on the 28th with Handulantaw: A Festival of Contemporary and Traditional Music and Dance Today.
But it would be disingenuous to compare CAC’s efforts with other similar bodies in Dumaguete, given Silliman’s resources and network. The city’s other educational and cultural institutions did rise to the challenge, facing the pandemic with cultural productions that defied the odds, some with more extensive efforts than others—and most of them virtual. One such commendable project was Hinalad Music Ministry’s offering of a Holy Week-timed music video, “Sa Krus,” in 2022, which transcended university borders and mixed in musical efforts by a variety of Dumaguete music people—including Jean Cuanan-Nalam [the composer], Gina Raakin [the arranger], Juni Jay Timbacan [the orchestrator, sound designer and mixer], Nikki Cimafranca [the director], Benjie Kitay and Kirk Antony Tebio [the videographers], and Dave Jan Fabe [the producer, with Cuanan-Nalam], featuring performances by Alexi Miraflor, Mary Anne Esquierdo, Majal Tagumpay Uriarte, Manuel Jarabe Jr., and Hope Tinambacan.
In Foundation University, its Office for Culture and the Arts spearheaded an online concert titled True Colors, featuring Abuhuni Choir, timed for the opening of its academic year in 2020, and ended the year with the A Very Special Christmas Celebration online concert, focusing on “The Christmas Pageant” by Rev. Jeanne Mcintosh, and also featuring the Abuhuni Choir, the Abuhuni Marching Band, and the Buglasayaw Dance Troupe. In 2021, there would be musical participations in the university’s regular cultural roster, including Saulog Artes in February, Padayon in April, and Kasadyaan in December, and the same slate in 2022—all virtual.
The truth of the matter is, even given the hardships of the pandemic, the astounding cultural grind at Silliman could continue on, blessed with a cultural leadership who undertook savvy creative choices that accepted the limitations of the pandemic and made something viable of the challenges, and bolstered by a shift to an online platform that readily showcased performances that had no need of the physicality of audiences. Still, it should be apt to take note that many of these performers unstintingly rose to the occasion upon invitation, and always “for the love of Silliman.” And yet, despite this abundance of cultural showcases, the reception in the greater community of Dumaguete remained largely muted. Unless you were an alumnus and followed the CAC Facebook posts with religion, you would not know what exactly was going on in campus, even virtually. That’s actually a longstanding pre-pandemic problem—engaging the greater Dumaguete community with Silliman’s cultural calendar—but the pandemic itself did not cure it. “It’s not without reason to think of Silliman sometimes as an island into itself. It’s terribly insular,” says D., a medical doctor.
COPVA aside, other music schools in town definitely felt the pandemic pinch. FunShop Dumaguete, a 20-year-old music tutoring center founded by Gina Raakin and associates and headquartered at the Bandera Building along Jose Pro Teves Street, knew the lockdown meant shifting lessons somehow online [not always a viable alternative for music learning], and soon, if the lockdown continued, less enrollment to their classes. But FunShop persevered, finding ways to make the limitations work, staging recitals like music videos and other endeavors, and even staging concerts with players on separate cameras playing music together. It was the same with the Jay Cyrus Creative Studios, which now occupies reduced space at the compound of the old Emilio Macias Building [formerly a hospital] along Manuel L. Teves Street, which has been taken over with some totality by a BPO. The enrollment dwindled—but a steadfast spirit that believed that things would get better was key. One needed faith to survive the pandemic. It was faith that opened the doors to other opportunities for Jay Cyrus Villanueva and his wife Wowee.
. . .
At the beginning of the third running year of the pandemic, Louise Remata-Villanueva [Wowee to friends] and Jay Cyrus Villanueva of the eponymous music school in Dumaguete stumbled on a chance of a lifetime. It was an opportunity to open an extensive performance space—and house the music school—at the old Bejar house along Hibbard Avenue in the heart of Piapi, right beside the public elementary school, a picturesque heritage structure cocooned in a vast compound. They imagined a stage gracing the extensive front lawn. They imagined a restaurant at the old garage. They imagined a lounge café in the first floor, complete with an intimate performance space. They imagined a studio and the school in the second floor. Their imagination ran towards the miraculously wonderful, so much so that only one name seemed perfect for the endeavor: Chadaa: Music and Dreams. In Binisaya, “tsada-a” means something delightful, brilliant, magnificent, astonishing, ideal.
In many ways, Chadaa as a performance and events venue was a wonderful pandemic fluke—and a leap of faith. But it is also something that seemed to be long time in coming, especially for Ms. Remata-Villanueva. Born in Cebu City but with Oriental Negrense roots, she had always considered Dumaguete to be home. She was four years old when her family moved to Dumaguete from Cebu, a very specific choice since her father actually landed an opportunity to work as general manager for Pepsi in Bacolod. But their grandparents were here, and they didn’t want to move elsewhere—and thus the choice of Dumaguete stood.
Ms. Remata-Villanueva earned her basic education from St. Paul’s, and went on to college at Silliman University, where she majored in Speech and Theatre. Music was already something deeply embedded in her passions, and this was the only choice for her: “Ever since grade school, I have been singing—which elevated to my love for music in general, most especially musical theatre and jazz,” she says. “After graduation, I took a few musical theatre workshops with Trumpets Manila, but mostly my exposure to theatre had been with Silliman, under the mighty directorship of the late Evelyn Aldecoa, my mentor and most favorite teacher.”
She would meet—and marry—Jay Cyrus Villanueva, Dumaguete’s top saxophonist who is a COPVA graduate, and who earned everyone’s delight by opening his own music tutorial center in Dumaguete, Jay Cyrus Creative Studios [JCCS], which grew quickly and became a success. [This year, it celebrates its tenth anniversary.] For Wowee, marriage to a budding music mogul meant being absorbed into the operations of the school, something she was already wont to do because of her extensive musical background. She became a coach for voice lessons, and eventually became the manager of the school. She also sang for events under Jay Cyrus Entertainment [now the Jay Cyrus Squad], a pop/jazz/funk band in Negros Oriental—and together with her husband, were the faces and voices of the pandemic Christmas music video the Dumaguete City Tourism Office released in 2020.
Dumaguete remained a center for their musical aspirations. “Jay and I love Dumaguete because of how rich our culture is here,” she says. “We want to be part of it and grow with it, especially that there are all these amazing artists here that truly inspire. They have personalities that humble you, and even ignite you to become even more creative and passionate. Dumaguete represents endless artistic and cultural possibilities.”
With that always in their minds, both had always dreamed of putting up a recital place of their own for their JCCS students. They envisioned a place where guests would be treated to eclectic experiences, from theatrical performances to stand-up comedy, from open-mics to music concerts with jazz bands, opera singers, classical pianists, and string quartets. “I can imagine having a solo cellist on a beautiful morning or a lazy afternoon in Chadaa,” she says. “What we want is to be able to provide and create an elevated atmosphere to showcase amazing talents in Negros and beyond.”
Finding the spot was a fluke that might be considered prophetic. “This location in Piapi was so random. I was in a car with my sister Therese Christine, and we were driving past this house, and she said: ‘Kanindot ani na lugar butangan ug something!’ Little did we know that fast forward to a few months, we got the exact same place, and now it is Chadaa.” And all it took, really, was an invitation of some sort from her father, Nestor T. Remata, and his best friends John Rojo and Nelson Cuñado, who all expressed an interest in investing in “something fun.” She immediately took the bait, showed them the property of her dreams, and broached the idea of a performance space—a step up from her and Jay’s dreams that for her seemed both like a “revelation and evolution.”
When the financing came through, she knew she wanted to preserve the old Bejar house as is, because its structure was already beautiful. It just needed a specific color scheme to pop out—and they settled on a particular marine blue that was at once arresting and cool, a vibe they were inspired by their love for the film La La Land, and for a certain old New Orleans jazz bar, and for The Blue Note in New York City.
The pandemic also defined their drive to succeed. “I believe that the pandemic has made an effect on us, because it has given us a thirst for bringing back the vibrant music scene in Dumaguete,” Ms. Remata-Villanueva says. “We want to widen the horizons of musicians here, provide a good place for music majors and all other artists—and not just waste their degrees and end up working at a call center—not that there is anything wrong with that! We want to provide a place where artists can really practice and hone what they have studied over the years and work on their passion.”
Today, Chadaa’s slate is still very much a work in progress—after declaring Wednesdays as Broadway Nights, they have just declared Saturday nights to be their Theatre Night [also for comedy specials and improv performances]—and their recently launched Jazz Nights on Fridays drew in a record number of attendees. In the meantime, since their launch in July 2022, they have hosted a variety of concerts, starting with saxophonist Joefre C. from Cebu and jazz musicians Mike Tambasen Project from Bacolod. Willfreedo would do its tenth anniversary concert in Chadaa, and the venue became a favorite performance space for a rotating number of singers and bands, including Enchi, Lagkaw Project, Ysabelle Lucero and Jordan Lim, Zia Mandi and Seth Gadiana [of Zamboanga], Carlos Zialcita and Blues Oriental, the Silliman University Jazz Band with Joseph Albert Basa, Julsduo [of Bohol], J-Squad, Julia, Crossroad Band, Pureplay, Jayson and Jamie, Nyords, All for Jordan, Chelsea Dawn, The Blues Bringer, The Quizo Family Singers, 3 of a Kind, Standout, and the in-house musical group Jay Cyrus Squad [formerly Jay Cyrus Entertainment].
The Belltower Project hosted their return from the pandemic doldrums in a January 28 concert celebrating their tenth anniversary in Chadaa. One of their pioneering members, Ms. Curran, had returned for a visit to Dumaguete—and the gang hastily took it as a chance to get back together, and to push plans to revive the Belltower Project brand and get back to the business of defining [and redefining] the Dumaguete sound. Their return concert was titled Decimo—perfect for a tenth anniversary gig, eschewing their usual homebase of Hayahay to this new concert place in Piapi. [They did return to Hayahay for their official tenth anniversary concert on 3 March 2023, with performances from Dalan, Crickets Playground, The Intermissioner, Modern Cassette, Ground Zero, and As the Skies Divide.] Performing together for the first time in years were some of BTP’s member bands, including Willfreedo, Finpot, Chelsea Dawn, Hopia, YONA, Trigger Gypsies, 3rd String, Own the Spot, and Chocodog Invasion, preceded by a songwriters jam early that afternoon. For many, the reunion show was virtually the fantastical end of the pandemic, a musical get-together to recollect and recharge.
It was an epic night of Dumaguete music. Tara De Leon, writer and music aficionado, recalls “the makeshift wall of tarpaulin obscure[ing] the venue, but the numerous cars and motorcycles that lined the street ‘revealed’ what was waiting inside” Chadaa. She says: “It wasn’t surprising, while Dumaguete seems to be teeming with live music performances, there was a certain hunger for that local flavor that the Belltower Project could only deliver and Decimo satiated that seemingly decade-long itch. Old fans of BTP nodded and acknowledged each other as if no time had passed, the familiar electric atmosphere welcoming us all home. The best part was the new young faces that dotted the concert grounds, full of energy and eager for local music—the bright future that will carry on the love and support for the local music community.”
Decimo triggered memories and hopes in equal measure, and perhaps also reminded everyone of the greater cause of Belltower Project. It was also a trigger of sentiments—and love. At the peak of the night, YONA’s Lorie Jayne Soriano received a proposal from her longtime partner [and co-band member], and tearfully accepted. Later, she would write of the whole thing:
“We [could] count the [number of] people who knew what we were going through lately. They didn’t know [Enrique Morelos Jr. and I] broke up a few weeks ago, cutting our six-and-a-half-year relationship. It got us so confused and messed up at some point, and the reason we still continued seeing each other was because we were part of the same band. So we had to be professional and show up at every rehearsal, performing our maoy songs na both of us could already relate… And then finally Decimo [came]. The event was a reunion of our Belltower Project community, the same community of musicians na nahimong reason why we met in the first place back in 2016. So many flashbacks! I was just enjoying every moment of the event because I was already thinking about what [Enrique] said that [he] might leave Dumaguete real soon. So while I was already tipsy, I had the courage to tell [him] something, and I whispered in [his] ear: ‘Kabalo ka, no? Dili ko ka imagine ug other person na kauban diri, ikaw ra.’ I really wanted to cry. After looking in [his] eyes, my heart was aching so badly I decided to go [to] where my friends [were]. [When] Willfreedo [performed], [he] knew how I loved seeing them perform up close… and there was [him] looking [at] me [at the corner]. Willfreedo played ‘I Will Make You Katawa’:
Bisan always ta mag away. Bisan mag-argue ta kanunay... Higugmaon tika hantod magulang ta.
“… Wala na ko kapugong, nakalingi ko [niya]… And then they played ‘Dumzville.’ [He was] already pushing me to go to the front kay gi-acknowledge ko ni Kuya Norris as their [music video] director before. Ug sa dihang niluhod naman intawon [si Enrique] sa kilid. Mura ko’g malipong ngano [syang] niluhod, nag sagol-sagol na ang naa sa akong utok, ngano man ni siya nga gabulag naman mi! And then I heard [him] talk... Samot ko na-confused! Wala na ko kadungog unsa to [iya] gisulti specifically, pero galantaw ko’s [iyang] mga mata, [and] I saw [his] sincerity. Tinuod gyud diay ang feeling na murag mawala sa [imong] panlantaw ang ubang tawo. And then [he] finally asked the question... [It was] a very memorable night, indeed. Nisulod and ni-perform [mi] nga single sa Chadaa, nigawas [mi] na engaged.”
That was a memorable January night of music and dreams—a fulfillment of Ms. Soriano’s love, and Mr. Tinambacan’s hopes, and Ms. Remata-Villanueva’s wishes. In September, the world finally comes to Dumaguete in celebration of choral music—and fulfilling, finally, Mr. Abrio’s aspirations. Distill all of that into a perfect “timpla,” and you get the Dumaguete sound.
The Belltower Project’s debut album was released on 2 March 2013. They are celebrating their tenth anniversary this year! And Dumaguete is grateful to have this community of music artists continue to refine locally produced sound. Dumaguete popular music has forever been changed because of BTP, a unique project that sought to define the Dumaguete sound with its anthology albums gathering the best original music by local singers, instrumentalists, and composers. That it has managed to do that for many years astounds me, this commitment to map out with diligence our contemporary varieties of songs. But what astounds me more is the fact that it fostered a community of musicians, each one helping the other in building audiences, and each one inspiring the other to push the envelope further in developing the Dumaguete soundscape. I have been a fan since Uno. Will be a fan of Dyes and forever. I have all their albums! And I plan to take a nostalgia trip through each song. [You can find all five albums on Spotify!]
End of a great musical era. RIP, Danny Javier. APO was a vital part of OPM, was its engine actually. But what I love was that they represented the country so well, demographically speaking. Jim was Luzon, Buboy was Visayas [from Dumaguete, actually], and Danny was Mindanao.
5:27 PM |
What I Love About the Dumaguete Booth at the 2022 Buglasan Festival
If you ask me, what I love about the Dumaguete Booth at the 2022 Buglasan Festival is the fact that the entire thing is essentially a tribute to the city’s heritage of culture and the arts. [Full disclosure: I am responsible for the design of the various labels featured in the displays, as well as for the various short essays featured around the venue, which I will be incorporating in this article. I am not, however, involved in the conception of the booth itself.]
The Dumaguete Booth is inspired by the old kiosk at the M.L. Quezon Park, which was built in the 1930s. The booth is designed by GLI Architects.
The booth’s structure, designed by GLI Architects, is a modern recreation of a local architectural beauty now long gone: the kiosk of old M.L. Quezon Park, which was built in the 1930s, but was replaced with a larger structure sometime in the late 1990s, which exists at present. The old kiosk served as a bandstand for various cultural events in the old town of Dumaguete. It was the centerpiece for the town plaza, and served as its heart, and a reminder of Dumaguete’s heritage and history.
The fact that City Tourism Officer Jacqueline Antonio chose this historical part of Quezon Park to represent Dumaguete at the Buglasan feels right, because the plaza itself is not only the veritable center of the city, it is also the true mark of confluence in terms of Oriental Negrense history. The plaza occupies the space between the Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria [the original foundation of which was built in 1754] and the Presidencia [built in 1937 by renowned Filipino architect Juan Arellano], and by its very location has been witness to the historical upheavals and progress of Dumaguete at the height of both Spanish and American colonial rules. It was in this space, for example, that Don Diego de la Viña and his men settled when they arrived in Dumaguete from Guihulngan on 24 November 1898, completing the liberation of Negros Oriental from Spanish rule. Here they hoisted the flag of the Republic in front of the nearby convento, while the men rang the bells of the church tower in jubilation.
Formerly a field of weeds, and then a corn field, and finally a makeshift plaza between the casa tribunal and the Catholic Church, Quezon Park was formally dedicated in the afternoon of 17 September 1916 with the firing of cannons, speeches, music, and refreshments—marking a year of rapid progress in Dumaguete. [By November 16, electric lights were turned on in Dumaguete for the first time.] Quezon Park was refurbished under the direction of Sr. Juan Posadas, transforming the area into recreation grounds with green lawns, gravel walks, flower beds, and concrete benches. It was named after the statesman Manuel L. Quezon, even before he became the President of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935. This was in honor of his efforts in the passage of the Jones Law, or the Philippine Autonomy Act, in 29 August 1916. Quezon had been one of the Philippines’ two resident commissioners to the U.S. House of Representatives, and had drafted at least two versions of the Jones Bill. Quezon would make frequent visits to Dumaguete in the ensuing years, developing a close relationship with the place. After World War II broke out in the Pacific and the Japanese Occupation began, Quezon and members of his family, and their military escorts, slipped off to safety in Australia from the port in Dumaguete by submarine on 6 March 1942.
The winning design of Oliver Gajano for the Festival Costume Competition of the 2021 Sinina Sandurot.
Going beyond this historical significance, we enter the Dumaguete Booth with a nod towards the costume and fashion arts—with a display of the winning design of Oliver Gajano for the Festival Costume Competition of the 2021 Sinina Sandurot. The costume is all of a piece with its intricate layers and accessories made from native materials, which try to refine the looks of Dumaguete’s premiere festival.
The Visual Arts display featuring Dumaguete artists Danilo Sollesta, Babbu Wenceslao, Jana Jumalon, Jomir Tabudlong, Mikoo Cataylo, Hemrod Duran, Kevin Cornelia, Alta Jia, Kat Banay, Hersley-Ven Casero, Flomil Rey Labarento, and Jascer Merced.
And then the visual arts take their dominance with a display of terra cotta sculptures and paintings of local visual artists Danilo Sollesta, Babbu Wenceslao, Jana Jumalon, Jomir Tabudlong, Mikoo Cataylo, Hemrod Duran, Kevin Cornelia, Alta Jia, Kat Banay, Hersley-Ven Casero, Flomil Rey Labarento, and Jascer Merced. Most of these are inspired by local scenes and tidbits of culture—like Sollesta’s rearing sigbin, Wenceslao’s crowded habal-habal ride, Banay’s watercolour travelogue of Dumaguete, and Tabudlong’s tianggue tribute.
“Barracuda Whirlpool,” by Alta Jia, Julbert Ramos, Beshiel Mayordomo, Jemuel Cubalan, and Flomil Rey Labarento.
The pieces occupy the central portion of the Dumaguete Booth, a display space that projects upwards and is crowned by a sculptural work, “Barracuda Whirlpool,” intricately made from hanging wires by artists Alta Jia, Julbert Ramos, Beshiel Mayordomo, Jemuel Cubalan, and Flomil Rey Labarento, with assist from An Marjo Banagua and Jude Millares. The work is inspired by the Banilad Marine-Protected Area, which is located in Barangay Banilad, and which is sometimes called Barracuda Alley because inventory of marine species at the site shows abundant schools of barracuda. (This MPA is a favorite among seasoned divers.)
Visual artist Mikoo Cataylo demonstrating terra cotta art-making.
On hand every day, from 5 PM to midnight, local terra cotta artists Mikoo Cataylo and Hemrod Duran demonstrate the rigors of their art right outside the Dumaguete Booth, building a sculpture from scratch, to be finished on the final day of the Buglasan Festival.
The heritage shorts of Dwntwn Film's JR Dalisay.
Immediately to the side of the visual arts display is a big screen that loops some of the most popular videos commissioned by the Dumaguete City Tourism Office in the past few years, most of them made under the auspices of Dwntwn Films, which is headed by local filmmaker JR Dalisay. The latest of these audiovisual presentations by Dalisay is a short film on the terra cotta heritage of Dumaguete City, which situates it both historically [recalling the pre-colonial past, as revealed by archaeological digs around the area, notably with sites in Bacong and Tanjay] as well as culturally [recalling Daro’s contribution to this heritage with its pot-making businesses, which as a whole is now a dying enterprise] and artistically [informed by the current trend among local artists in incorporating terra cotta in their work].
The music heritage display with the DIY piano on the second floor of the Dumaguete Booth.
On the second floor of the Dumaguete Booth, we find an exhibit dedicated to the music heritage of Dumaguete, complete with a DIY “piano” on the floor—with each key dedicated to a particular contemporary Dumaguete band of regional and national renown. This “piano” is a delightful attraction as it actually makes a sound when each of its keys is struck by a visitor’s foot. It invites one to create music, or just some random sound. This display is important because if Dumaguete has an artistic claim to fame that should be recognized more, it is that it’s a veritable City of Music. It is a musical melting pot to both the classical and the contemporary, having been the venue for various music festivals and workshops, as well as concerts of all kinds of genres, from jazz to metal, from reggae to pop, from orchestral to opera. It has also contributed greatly to the culture of national music with its deeply-held traditions in ethnomusicology, choral music, band music, and orchestral music. Today, it is home to bands and solo acts that are currently making waves in the regional and national music scene, and boasts of a thriving network of music artists—the Bell Tower Project—that has produced a series of successful anthology albums that have helped shape the Dumaguete sound. That “sound” is still very much in the process of defining itself, but it is music that speaks of an island vibe, a Dumaguete cool, a small city liveliness that moves you to listen, to jive, to find yourself home. The display also names some of the makers of this Dumaguete sound, a sampling of bands, musical groups, singers, composers, instrumentalists, educators—including Enchi, Hopia, Midnasty, Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez, Priscilla Magdamo-Abraham, Elmo Makil, and many others.
The literary heritage display on the second floor of the Dumaguete Booth.
Another display I am more responsible for is the Dumaguete Booth’s tribute to the literary heritage of Dumaguete. I was tasked to gather together the cover art of books by Dumaguete authors, with titles that directly depict the city in novels, short stories, poetry, plays, and essays. The inspiration for the display sprang from a quote by Dumaguete writer and National Artist for Literature Edith Lopez Tiempo. A national magazine once posed this question to her: “What makes you stay in the Philippines?” And her answer was short: “The Dumaguete shoreline.”
For me, this response is perfectly emblematic of the “pull of place” in the life of writers, and how important where one comes from is in the life of the imagination. One can consider Dumaguete as a singular place of importance when it comes to the development of literature in the Philippines, because for many, it has been nurturing ground for some of the best writers in the country and the literal hometown to some of our most important contemporary writers, many of whom have helped shape the country’s literature as it exists today. Dumaguete is also only one of the few places in the Philippines where so many books have been dedicated to exploring, and the books featured at the Dumaguete Booth are only some of the tomes that showcase this tendency. This tribute is an encouragement for everyone to read them, and for locals to get to know their own writers, to get to know their own literature, and ultimately to get to know Dumaguete better.
Come and see the Dumaguete Booth at the Buglasan now, and bask in our heritage of culture and the arts!
A display of Dumaguete-made products, including Inciento, Garnish, Subida, Pinspired, Aetos, Antigo, Nanay's Bulad Flakes, Momsie’s, and Mang Kaloy Espesyal.
Bruce Weber’s Let's Get Lost [1988], his searing look into the life and music of jazz legend Chet Baker, is the saddest, the most beautiful documentary I’ve seen on a musician. The black and white photography is gorgeous — you can’t expect anything less from the director who's also a famously brilliant. The music is evocative and gets under your skin — a jazz soundtrack to die for. [I kept playing “Imagination” on the OST on repeat because it was just astonishing.] And the subject himself oozes with talent, charisma, and mystery — you can’t help but fall hard for this beautiful asshole of a genius. This film has been on my queue list for months. Why did I wait?
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the launch of the Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez International Choral Festival, set to begin its first edition in 2023—and how in a way it is a cumulative effort of a very long tradition of choral music in Dumaguete.
I thought of putting on paper exactly that long tradition. [Some of these information comes from Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman University, a coffeetable book I edited in 2013.]
In Silliman University, the aspiration for quality education, with the attendant promotion of its cultural events, has always been incorporated with the quality of Christian faith, which permeates every aspect of university life. Music, needless to say, has helped in the permeation. It has invariably played a significant and integral role in the development of the university, which can be traced back to Silliman’s earliest history.
When Silliman Institute was first established in 1901, there was still no offering of any formal courses in music, and consequently, the earl teachers taught subjects ranging from pre-English to pre-college courses in Latin, German, and geometry, and even other courses like geography and arithmetic. They had Bible studies on Sundays. Interestingly, however, even if a band and an orchestra were already in existence as early as 1906, there was still no Department of Music.
At that time, however, Silliman founder and first president David S. Hibbard already spoke of a vision to establish a music school which he hoped would be accomplished sometime in the second quarter of the Silliman’s existence. But that eventually happened in 1912 when the school administration decided to create a Music Department under the purview of the College of Arts and Sciences. In the early years, the Music Department was responsible for organizing the music groups on campus, which also included the Silliman Glee Club.
In 1931, a music program featuring the Lopez and the Kabayao musical families inspired Board of Trustees Chairman Charles R. Hamilton to fulfill what had been Hibbard’s vision of a music school, and suggested that a Conservatory be established to train teachers for the supervision of music education in public schools, as well as produce professional musicians among young Filipino talents. The next year saw Hamilton’s vision for come to fruition when the Hibbards transferred to a new home, with their old home converted to house the growing music community on campus. Subsequently, in 1934, the Music Department became the Conservatory of Music under the leadership of Geraldine Cate, the founding director of the Conservatory, who was also its first voice teacher. Choirs for church services, as well as vocal quartets, were organized and which traveled to other town churches in Negros Oriental. It was during this time that Covenant Choir [for Sunday services], the Pilgrim Choir [for Friday convocations], and the High School Choir [later the Youth Choir, for the high school’s own early Sunday morning services] were organized.
After Cate left for the U.S. in 1938, the person who maintained the stability of the Conservatory was Mercedes Magdamo. Her stint was transitional as the school was still in search for a full-time director. The vacancy was eventually filled by Ramon Tapales, an accomplished musician educated in Milan and Berlin, and who served Silliman from 1940 until the arrival of the Japanese in Dumaguete during World War II. Under his watch, the Conservatory of Music acquired a grant from the government to offer a Music Teacher’s Certificate for voice, violin, and piano in 1941. That year, the “small” center of culture in southern Philippines no longer carried the Conservatory title; it simply became known as the Music School, which had, by then, entered a period of solid progress.
After the traumatic lull of World War II, which saw the building housing the Conservatory burn to the ground, students began enrolling back to study piano, voice, and the violin. The School of Music was back in business by 1946, with Mercedes Magdamo as acting director, a post she held until the arrival of Mary L. Reese, a choral conductor and organist. Miss Reese expanded the choral program by adding a secular choir, the Silliman Singers, to the roster of established choirs. She introduced larger choral works for presentation by the combined choirs and singers from the community at large, and initiated a tradition of presenting George Frederick Handel’s oratorio, Messiah, during the Christmas season of 1949. The tradition of presenting operettas in the amphitheater was renewed.
William Pfeiffer became the school director in 1953, and through his initiatives, the School of Music was able to augment their collection of musical instruments, generally improving the music program at Silliman. Under his leadership, Silliman soon started to gain recognition in the country for its choral music program, which, since then, has become the forte of Silliman—a pioneering effort in the Philippines. The school took a considerable leap forward with Pfeiffer at the helm. Sixteen new courses in music, including classes on music education, a task heretofore undertaken by the College of Education, were offered. By 1952, it was now possible to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in music. Student population grew, the orchestra was revived, the music school played a dominant role in the Silliman Church, and music in general became even more prominent in the life of the campus.
The Silliman University Campus Choristers in the 1950s
The Silliman University Men's Glee Club with Albert Faurot
The Silliman Young Singers Choir with Isabel Vista in Malacañang Palace
The Campus Choristers in 1999 with Elizabeth Susan Vista
The decades of the 1950s and 1960s were considered the golden years of the School of Music. For one, the arrivals of Pfeiffer and Albert Louis Faurot strengthened the faculty line-up, which, by 1957, had seven top-caliber musicians. Faurot would later form the famous ALFALO Trio with Peregrino T. Aledia at the clarinet, Faurot at the piano, and Zoe R. Lopez at the violin. In 1962, Faurot would also organize the Men’s Glee Club, building on the earlier efforts by Rev. Thomas Lung, who formed an all-male choral group, the Seminary Singers, in 1951 at the College of Theology. In 1966, Leland L. Chou also organized the Women’s A Capella Chorus, the female counterpart of the Men’s Glee Club.
One of the school’s faculty members, Priscilla Magdamo [now Abraham], received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to help her research on the folk music of the Visayas. (In 1952, while she was still in high school, Magdamo was also responsible for forming a fledgling choral group composed of the children of faculty members, with co-founders Ruth Imperial [as pianist] and Elmira Layague [as organizer]. They organized a concert to raise funds for a pew slated for the newly built Silliman Church. That group later on became the Silliman University Campus Choristers.) Magdamo’s research on Visayan folk music also yielded another choral group in 1957—the Folk Arts Ensemble, which was tasked to perform in 50 cities all over the country the very music recorded for the project, and in the regions the songs were taken from in particular. The project contributed significantly to the developing greater public appreciation for traditional Philippine music.
Isabel Dimaya-Vista became head of the school in 1974-1976, and under her tutelage, the Silliman Young Singers Choir, a group of choristers from the elementary school which she co-founded with Gloria Villanueva Teng, became a fixture in various programs in the community. The group later won First Place in the Children’s Choir Category of the 1973 National Music Competition for Young Artists. Their victory led to an invitation to sing for First Lady Imelda Marcos at Malacañan. They also won, as part of its prize, a bus—now an iconic figure in Silliman campus. Dimaya-Vista would once again become school director in 1981-1985. It was during this time that the 5-year curriculum of the Bachelor of Music degree was reduced to four years. After her departure for the U.S., various people filled the position of school director (and later dean), including Vienna Jumalon-Silorio. Under Silorio, the Women’s Ensemble was organized by Dr. Marybeth Lake, and the defunct Men’s Glee Club was revived by Ceasar Pacalioga, an alumnus who had musical exposure in Malaysia.
Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez [then Zamar] came home to Silliman in 1989, and armed with an MA in choral conducting from the Combs College of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she reorganized the Campus Choristers. Under her tutelage, the choir made a steady stream of achievements. In 1998, it reached its popular peak when it was chosen by the Cultural Center of the Philippines as the Philippine Centennial Goodwill Ambassadors to the United States. The choir completed an eleven-state tour of America in 1999, with keynote performances at the United Nations for the UNICEF, the Riverside Church in New York, at a festival in Disney World in Orlando, Florida, among others. She returned to the U.S. with another tour, this time with the group temporarily rechristened the Silliman University Gratitude and Goodwill Ambassadors [SUGGA], which heralded the centennial celebration of Silliman University. After this stint, she formed a community choir named Ating Pamana, which also toured the U.S. in 2003. These forays into choral conducting also saw the release of several recordings and concerts, as well as tours all over the Philippines, and won plaudits in various competitions, including the National Music Competition for Young Artists in 1996. Under her, the Campus Choristers staged several successful concerts, including Sariling Awit and Yari in 1998, and Huni, Tutti, and Spectrum in 1997.
Vista-Suarez’s leadership also led to the offering of a master’s degree program in 2000, with majors in Choral Conducting, Instrumental Conducting, Ethnomusicology, and Music Education.
Today, six major choral groups still exist in Silliman: the Campus Choristers [under Vista-Suarez once more], the Covenant Choir [also under Vista-Suarez], the Pilgrim’s Choir [under Alexie Dagaerag-Miraflor], the Men’s Glee Club [under Nathaniel Bicoy], the Women’s Ensemble [under Maria Elcon Cabanag-Koerkamp], and the O’Clock Choir from the Divinity School [under Jean Cuanan-Nalam].
5:26 PM |
Taking Dumaguete Choral Music to the World
A few days ago, in the midst of the hubbub that was the long-awaited return of “normal” Founders Day festivities for Silliman University, the Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez [ESVS] International Choral Festival was officially launched at the Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium. It is scheduled to premiere in 2023, a year from now. According to its organizers, the competition hopes to bring in choral groups from all over the world to Dumaguete, in celebration of this distinctive type of music, and in honor of a woman who has been my mentor [and also artistic collaborator] for many years. I say it’s something that’s long time in coming.
The first time I truly met Ma’am Sue on a personal level—I’d seen her around Silliman campus before that, leading various choral performances—it was when I was cast as one of the Jets for a local production of West Side Story, for which she was musical director. This was in the mid-1990s. It, however, turned out to be an abortive production. Suddenly, the show was being replaced by Godspell. A bunch of us from the West Side Story cast was handpicked for the new production—and once more, Ma’am Sue served as our musical director.
It was the start of a long friendship and mentorship, which I will always cherish to the end of my days. Because it was a small cast, we all had solos—and our ability to deliver well the musical requirements of the show was under Ma’am Sue’s direction. To sing under her tutelage was an eye-opener—part learning technique, and part accommodating therapy. It was not just about hitting the right notes. It was also about delving deep into ourselves so that those notes would matter in a storytelling level. And it wasn’t about singing bombastically either. Ma’am Sue taught us to value the quiet moments, the spaces between breathing, the right cadence and the right volume.
Afterwards, she welcomed me to sing with the storied Silliman University Campus Choristers, where I was first bass throughout most of my college life. It was a wonderful time, a period in my life where my dreaming consisted of kundimans and staples of the Filipino Songbook which we had to learn to sing for this show and that, for this competition and that. That was also when she mentored me and the rest of her disciples her longstanding musical philosophy of “timpla”—essentially, an exercise in the exquisite mixture of varied harmonies, and fine-tuned in the best way possible. You see, Ma’am Sue was regularly horrified by the fact that for many choral groups, to be loud and bombastic was what was considered de rigueur. And what was worse was the fact that these groups kept on winning choral competitions, because their “loudness” was just too impressive to ignore. Ma’am Sue never believed in that. She believes in restraint, she believes in the graces of small notes, she believes in the drama of just the right combination of vocal prowess to give us the exact feel of a song.
She has been waging this “timpla war” for a long time, to be honest. With this international competition that bears her name, she has taken the battle to a new level. It’s about time.
But the launch of the ESVS International Choral Festival is also testament to all our collective love for music here in Negros Oriental, something which we hope to share more fully with the rest of the world. It recognizes and accomplishes two things that are important to consider in terms of the legacy of music in Dumaguete City:
First, it cements first the heritage of music in Dumaguete, which is very much a City of Music—a distinction made by its history of nurturing a culture of appreciation and a culture of application through performance. This history and heritage though has been largely ignored in the larger scheme of Philippine music history—something which we have been fighting to change of late. But a quick look at that history will give you the idea that Dumaguete has contributed a great deal to the development of music in the Philippines—from the pioneering ethnomusicology of Priscilla Magdamo, William Pfeiffer, and Frank Englis to the cathartic performances of Elmo Makil, Constantino Bernardez, and Emmanuel Gregorio; from the piano-playing of Ruth Pfeiffer, Isabel Vista, and Ricardo Abapo Jr. to the violin-playing of Gilopez Kabayao, Zoe Lopez, and KayCee Galano; from the classic voices of Gamaliel Viray and Katrina Saga to the contemporary tones of Enchi and Hope Tinambacan; from the choral triumphs of Albert Faurot to the concert band popularity of Joseph Basa; from the pioneering musical researches of Elena Maquiso to the pioneering technological innovations of Juni Jay Tinambacan. The list goes on.
We truly have a great heritage of music here—but among all the ones I’ve mentioned, one kind of music has come to define Dumaguete City the most: choral music. We are pioneering in the development of this genre of music, an observation once made by National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab. And if there is one person who has done the most in that regard, it is Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez.
Thus, the ESVS International Choral Festival is also a celebration of one person’s commitment and dedication to bringing unique chorale sound to the national and international stage. Over the years, she has led a variety of choral groups to successful international tours and recordings, and in that time has come to refine a kind of choral music that we—as her disciples—have come to regard as, “lami og timpla.” Not bombastic for bombast’s sake, but choral music that uses voices “just enough” to respect the integrity of the choral piece.
The choral festival, scheduled for next year and which will bring outstanding choral groups from all over the world to Dumaguete City, is an experiment in that timpla. We can’t wait.
12:51 PM |
A Grand Finale to the 2022 CCP Arts Academy
Have you ever had that feeling that you've done your best, and now it's up to the fates for that one last go to end up at least satisfactorily? We — the mentors for literature, dance, theatre, visual arts, music, and film — workshopped and workshopped and workshopped for five days straight, and now it came to this: a recital involving all the participants for the closing ceremony.
With barely half-a-day of rehearsals to iron out the kinks and to determine what needed to be done [choreography, choice of pieces, etc.], we were in it because everyone wanted it. In fact, we started the week thinking a final performance was going to be optional for each workshop. By Wednesday, all the mentors were keen to do at least something. By Thursday afternoon, we had some idea about what to do. By Friday morning, the rehearsals began. By Friday afternoon, the performances were on the slot.
AND IT WAS TREMENDOUS. It was like watching a concert of all the arts coming together in a spectacular and unexpected grand finale, with everybody doing their best to make everything work. You couldn't tell that most of the dances — sometimes paired with poets or with theatre artists — were improvised on the spot. It was just all seamless, certainly not without its flaws [a missing cue, a missing mic, etc.], but altogether fantastic. This is why in this video, as the last performers took a bow, we are all so generous with our applause, because we recognized that we just did something magical — and that all that hard work actually went to something tangible.
I think I echo my other co-mentors when I repeat what I said to myself at the end of the program: "Oh my God, they all actually learned something from us." We actually observed that our participants — 188 teachers from all over the Philippines — were hungry to learn, were willing to absorb something new and challenging, and most of all were generous to share their [sometimes newfound] talent in front of everyone. We made them dance, write, act, direct, make music, make art — and in the end, we were all very happy.
Thank you, Cultural Center of the Philippines Arts Academy [Chris Millado / Ron B. Mirabuena] and Silliman University Culture and Arts Council [Diomar Abrio] for making this possible. And congratulations to all my co-mentors [Dessa Quesada-Palm, Cheenee Vasquez Limuaco, Angelo Sayson, Aiken Quipot, Elvert Bañares, Juni Jay Tinambacan, Joseph Albert Perez Basa, W Don Flores, Ramon del Prado, and AK Ocol] for forming such a formidable group of resource speakers.
[1] An American missionary in Calvary Chapel [my former church] seems to be a COVID conspiracy theorist, and MAGA to boot. [Sigh.] How is this guy a “missionary”? [Worse: some people I know like his posts regularly.]
[3] Dear God, my poor country. The chaotic scene at SM San Lazaro in Manila early this morning, as people ran to secure vaccine slots. The system is so broken, so heartbreaking.
[Video by Anthony Llegue Norcio]
[4] I hate feeling like a spy, but when I see establishments breaking COVID protocol, I report. Even my favorite establishments, I report. I am concerned about COVID above all. The staff usually gets reprimanded when these things get reported. Which is why I feel guilty — but it also feels like a barbed necessity. Because I know a lot of these staff people, and they’re nice. But they’re also steeped in a cultural fix that makes them timid in front of intimidating and demanding customers they see as “important,” especially foreigners. There are class issues at play here.
[5] The Olympic athletes this year have been so amazing and inspiring. [Except you, Novak Djokovic.]
[6] Listening to opera singer Zofia Kilanowicz sing “Symfonia piesni zalosnych” from Henryk Górecki’s ̄Symphony No. 3, Op. 36 while on Ritalin rush is absolute mental orgasm.
Today is International Kissing Day! It is a secular celebration of kissing, and is all about showing your love and improving your health! To celebrate that, I’m sharing a music video of “Sayaw Ta,” by Hope Tinambacan, which features a bunch of Dumaguete couples — including Renz and me! — dancing and kissing, and what-not.
[Note: These are not all romantic couples. There are also mothers and sons here.]
My favorite music I have never heard in its entirety is Max Richter’s Sleep. It’s eight hours long. Most nights, when I go to sleep, I play it on Spotify. It’s so beautiful, and it also guarantees that within minutes I’d knock out. And since it’s eight hours long, it also measures the amount of sleep hours I’ve had. Today, I woke up way before it was finished. Oh, well.
I wonder what mechanism whirrs in the hearts
of those who see sunrise and despise it
for fallowness of brilliance, demanding more.
Isn't it enough that the sun deigns to shine?
The majesties of life are miracles obscured
in the mundane: a flower blooms, rain falls,
laughter springs from padlocked depths.
I listened once to music that was lullaby
For a runaway world. Someone demanded explanation
For the process, what sweat went to composing.
I said shush: to succumb is enough.
There will be no dissecting music, or light.
10:08 PM |
Strings at Ritual
