Long live the King
The King is dead. I remember watching on YouTube a documentary on the events that started with the demise of King George and which culminated in the coronation of his daughter Queen Elizabeth II. After that somber announcement of the king’s death, “Long Live the Queen” followed. The successor fills the void left by the deceased monarch.
Tita King is dead. She left us on a weekend. She left us quietly. She would have turned 90 on Aug. 31. And nobody could fill the void she has left in the world of Philippine culture and music. No matter. Hers has been a long and prolific life of creating, teaching, discovering talents, administrating and aggressively promoting Philippine culture, specifically music through her compositions. Hers is a powerful testimony and a lasting legacy.
I need not repeat here what is known about her from what appeared in the news after her death or what we can read in books, articles and write-ups about this illustrious Filipina, who is doubtless a Philippine icon. She has not only become one in the field of high-brow music. She has also entered Philippine Literature as clearly that personage (the dean of the PWU College of Music) in Edilberto Tiempo’s poignant and crafty novel Cracked Mirror. She also figured in the controversial biography of the former First Lady published in the ’70s, as being instrumental in her voice studies. She has also entered Filipino gay lingo, as the expression “Lucrecia Kasilag” has been given a rather radical twist humorously yet wickedly far from the true grandeur of the historical personage. And needless to say, Kasilag is already an immortal figure in Philippine history.
Kasilag was dean of the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) College of Music and Fine Arts, music director of the world-renowned Bayanihan Philippines Dance Company, chairman of the League of Filipino Composers, president of the Philippine Society for Music Education, secretary of the Music Promotion Foundation of the Philippines, president of the National Music Council of the Philippines, chairman of the Committee on Culture of the UNESCO, vice president of the Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. She balanced all these vertiginous commitments with her composition, performances and lectures. She was the paragon of multi-tasking, even before the word came into vogue. For many, especially those who called her “Tita King,” she was the paladin of dedication to one’s work who combined generosity and kindness in her enriching personality which commanded respect and admiration.
I met Tita King as a young boy through my aunt, National Artist for Music Andrea Ofilada Veneracion. Since then, we had sporadic contacts, marked by small talk, some banter. Before her eyesight failed her, she would almost always be the first to greet with a smile. My aunt held Tita King in high esteem. Unknown or forgotten to many, Andrea was King’s student in Nihongo during the Japanese period and became her professor in History of Music in the U.P. Conservatory of Music, where Kasilag — who is identified with her alma mater PWU — served as college secretary. Andrea remarked that Tita King taught the subject with pedagogic competence and skill, exposing the different periods of music, as divided by the text, with clarity. If Veneracion had not pursued her degree in piano at the UP under the renowned pedagogue Julian Esteban Anguita, she would have done so as a piano student of Tita King, a student of Sister Baptista Battig in St. Scholastica’s College, in PWU.
Andrea, who had long collaborated with Kasilag in the Philippine musical scene, specifically during her stint as artistic director for music of the Folk Arts Theatre and in organizing state events and international choral congresses, also deferred to Tita King’s wise judgement, specifically on the alleged plagiarism controversy involving one of the late George Canseco’s composition. Even if Andrea was one of the world’s best choral conductors, she would have preferred that the composer and educator Tita King, who herself was knowledgeable of the choral art, be the chairman of the board of jurors in any choral competition held in these shores.
These details were not mentioned by Kasilag in her prelude or prologue to the fine biography of Andrea penned by the noted poetess and academician Marjorie Evasco Pernia. Tita King did mention in the same piece that she watched Andrea grow and mature, citing my grandmother, Reymunda Careaga, who was a noted soprano who promised that her daughter would mature into a true musician. I remember distinctly Tita King being present at my grandmother’s funeral and burial 26 years ago.
King also narrates in her prelude how she was instrumental in facilitating the first international foray of what would become the country’s foremost contribution to the world of choral music, the Philippine Madrigal Singers (Madz), with that memorable rendition of Randal Thompson’s “Alleluia” in
Her compositions, and she was prolific at that, are indeed thought-provoking and interesting, from an academic viewpoint. I heard them through the Madz, especially “Purihin si Yahweh” and Tita King’s arrangement of “Akin Cu Pung Singsing,” and on other occasions, always assessed by the expertise of my aunt Andrea. Admittedly, I am not really an aficionado of her compositions, though they command my respect and admiration in their pioneering fusion of East and West, for example her “Divertissement for Piano and Orchestra,” and in their mandate to be a narrative of the Filipino soul, which is elusive to clear-cut definition. And I take this occasion to encourage more scholars to follow the trailblazing paths of those who studied the works of this Filipina icon.
For me, the best of Tita King are not her compositions, but how she made things happen for Philippine culture and music. Because of her contacts, skills, suave management, driving force, and above all, benevolence, she made things happen such as the phenomenon Cecile Licad and other stars of the Philippine artistic firmament. She also made the CCP possible and she will be remembered for the best years of the CCP, marked by a great growth not only in artistic production but especially of artistic consciousness among Filipinos and in the international community of the Filipino talent. Others would compare her to the Chinese goddess of mercy, Kuan-Yin, for her benevolence and powers to make things happen or to have the Midas touch for transforming cultural dreams to reality. But I prefer to remember her simply as “Tita King,” incomparable in the Philippine scene and the point of comparison for those who would dare follow the same multitasking path of the so-called Queen of Philippine Music, who was called King.
As we mourn her passing and await the one who would dare tread on this highly challenging path, we painfully remind ourselves that TITA (THE) KING IS DEAD. At the same time, we shout LONG LIVE THE (TITA) KING!
