“Voices on string” from world-class musician Michael Dadap

o spend part of an afternoon talking about classical guitar music and hearing a sample of the guitar’s different “voices” blending together from an internationally renowned musician is an unexpected treat for someone who absolutely cannot play any instrument.

The clumsy-fingered girl would be me, and the musician I bow down to is none other than Michael Dadap.

Born in Leyte to a family of musicians, this graduate of the University of the Philippines-Diliman went to New York to study at the Mannes College of Music and the Julliard School. His successful debut in 1974 at the Carnegie Recital Hall was followed by extensive concert tours in the United States, Europe and the Far East.

He has also served as a visiting professor at Silliman University, and is the first recipient of the 2000 Artist of the Year Award from the New York Flushing Council on the Arts and the Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo 2000 Pamana ng Lahi Presidential Award for promoting Philippine culture and similar causes through his art.

Presented by the Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, his special concert tonight at the SU Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium is entitled “Mostly Pinoy” Serenades for Guitar.

“The content of the entire recital is mostly Pinoy. Our music is so beautiful and I find it very puzzling that we do not perform our own music. There are many Filipino works that merit to be played side by side with the master work of others,” he said.

During the concert, he will play Augustine Barrios’ “La Catedral,” his five Visayan serenades for the guitar including “Damgohon ko ikaw” (I’ll dream of you), “Imo Ako, Wa’ay Djaga’-Dzaga’” (I’m yours, no kidding), Constancio de Guzman’s “Maala-ala mo kaya” (Will you remember?), “Dandansoy,” and variations on the Philippine folksong “Lulay.”

Getting introduced to the classics

“Classical guitar music became popular when composers belonging to the classical and romantic period started exploring the possibilities of guitar as a concert instrument. Because before it was an instrument for the poor people and not really for the concert stage,” he started.

“Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani, Francisco Tarrega developed a technique that allows the guitar to be played for a solo concert. Advocated by these three big giants, the technique can enable you to do anything with the guitar and turn an ordinary song into something with dignity.

“Augustine Barrios is a product of all three. I’m a product of the same school, but I think my technique I learned from my teachers in New York is from English guitarist Julian Bream. And it’s all passed on.

“Sor exposed a technique to produce four different voices, and play four different lines at the same time. It’s called voicing, and the challenge of the musician is to produce the voices with clarity,” he said.

When it comes to local players, he had this to say: “I really honestly feel we have tremendous talents here, but what we lack is a concentrated structure of curriculum. When I was in New York, my teachers made me attend to things like ear training, dictation, theory, chorus, orchestra; the entire gamut of curricula. I wasn’t allowed to play a difficult piece until my technique was fixed.

“Here, I see a student playing a concerto. They’re not yet ready. They can play it out of sheer ability and talent but maraming butas,” he noted. “It’s not anybody’s blame. Our culture right now is still growing.”

A guitar player since the late 1960s, he said, “I find the guitar the most natural instrument to produce beautiful sounds with. I like the sensation of the vibrations it produces when it’s close to my body. It’s so Pinoy and it can be independent because you can use it to accompany a song, in a group, orchestra. It’s like a small orchestra.”

“Being a guitarist is my life, and I enjoy sharing my music. But more than that, I wish to impart my knowledge to anyone who is interested,” he remarked.

Talking about the most underappreciated instrument

He launched his book “The Virtuoso Bandurria” last February during the International Rondalla Festival in Dumaguete, after giving a lecture on the bandurria, which he said is the most underrated and underappreciated musical instrument. “A lot of people think that when I talk about the bandurria, I want to organize a rondalla. Anybody can organize rondalla. But I want to standardize the learnings of the instru-ment so that we can go beyond ‘Bahay Kubo’.”

Hoping to nurture appreciation for the instrument, he said, “My motivation is to elevate and restore the prominence of bandurria for the concert stage where it belongs, and break the perception that it is for the poor or the bulag. It is for everyone. I find that my worst enemy is not lack of teachers or enthusiasm, but our poor perception of the instrument.”

“I feel that the Philippines considers art like a quotation mark, an appendage. I feel sad about that. I think the arts, business and the academe are part of one body.”

When asked about his impressions of Dumaguete City, he said, “I like the atmosphere here. I think Dumaguete is so lucky. It has a centralized location; it’s not attacked by severe weather conditions. This is really a beautiful area. But we cannot also settle to be satisfied with what we are. We have to start welcoming ideas and possibilities too.”

Whatever the case, with tonight’s concert and based on the sample of “Dandansoy” he played during the interview, Dumaguete students, and Negros Oriental residents and music enthusiasts will truly experience what Silliman University’s Cultural Affairs Committee chair Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez considers as “the appreciation of art as expressions of the soul.”

The Filipino soul expressed through voices on string. That’s guaranteed.