It was an emotional moment for Anton Huang when Licad dedicated the Schumann-Liszt piece to Nedy Tantoco. ‘Sad that it was actually my mom’s last concert.’
It’s hard to believe that Cecile Licad — hailed by The New Yorker as a pianist’s pianist — has moments of self-doubt, and has her own ups and downs.
Before a performance, she sits quietly and asks, “Do I really know this piece? Am I good?” It’s only when she’s coaxing a maelstrom of notes from the piano that she tells herself, “Yes, of course, I know this piece and I’m going to have fun playing it.”
She even counts on those little imperfections, because they make the show. They turn the performance into something more human, authentic, relatable. That sense of vulnerability gives the music an element of danger. Think of a trapeze artist or an ambitious mortal trying to catch lightning bolts from the gods.
People can’t be faulted for thinking that Cecile Licad is nothing less than this epic encyclopedic entry. After all, she is a veritable composition of many movements and variations, a chorus of stories and interwoven motifs.
When Cecile did a session for Wynton Marsalis’ jazz ensemble for a silent film, playing a piece by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the band members were so impressed by her performance that they dubbed her “a badass.” On a cruise, she once asked the legendary Dizzy Gillespie why his cheeks puffed up when he played the trumpet. “So does my ass, babe,” was the answer. For her first assignment at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, a young Cecile was told by her professor, the eminent pianist Rudolf Serkin, to memorize Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in 10 days. Her reply was, “Yes, sir, it shall be done.” One time, when she played at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), there was a power outage, plunging the entire concert hall into darkness. And yet the pianist continued to play the demanding Rachmaninoff concerto; the notes blossoming briskly in the swelling dark. When she performed at the Metropolitan Theater Manila recently, we wondered what memories were triggered when she saw the place after a long spell.
“I remember losing my suitcase,” she says with a laugh. “That was the start of the whole trip. (The organizers) had to rush and get me the stuff I needed.” Licad last played at the Met in 1989 with her ex-husband, Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses. That was a lifetime ago. When she returned last March 19 for the “Cecile Licad at the Met” concert, memories and musical moments may have accrued, but new ones were bound to be made.
“It’s quite special for me, this trip, because it’s sad, but at the same time I had to lift people’s spirits through music. Music is about all kinds of emotions. It tells a story, it’s like a teleserye (laughs). The great pieces of classical music are like epic novels by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.”
With music, you have to really be in it, like method actors disappearing in the vortex of their current roles (a De Niro or Pacino, a Daniel Day-Lewis).
Licad adds how she doesn’t like playing for the sake of merely playing. If it’s perfunctory, she abhors it. “I want to be an actor. I want to get into the soul of music, so that I can make the listeners feel sad or happy. Because if I don’t feel it, nobody will. You have to be electrified with what you’re doing. I am the type who’s always finding something new (in whatever I’m doing). (Even in terms of) touch. Sometimes, at the last moment papalitan ko ’yung fingering ko.”
A thought that would absolutely horrify the sh*t out of many pianists.
“I like taking risks,” says Cecile. Something which Licad has done since debuting at the Philamlife Theater at age seven, making her professional debut at 19 with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony, followed by several decades of impressing audiences all over the world — her fingers conjuring the most enchanting ordering of notes ever put together, historic halls echoing with the poetry of nocturnes and evocative landscape pieces, prime ministers and kings being left in awe.
“For me, it only becomes exciting if it’s something I’ve never tried before. It’s like painting — papalit-palit ka ng kulay. (In my case as a pianist) I have to determine which fingers to use that will be stronger and will deliver for me a thousand times better. And you don’t just follow the notes. Others would say, ‘No, you can’t just cross your hands because it’s not written in (the notation).’ But it’s what I hear in the music and it’s what I imagine Tchaikovsky would’ve liked. Do you think Horowitz would just obediently follow what’s written? No way! In the end, you have to make music come alive, so that audiences will be riveted. And I’m discovering new things every time I play. My son Otavio goes, ‘Mom, you’ve played that piece so many times already. Why are you relearning it again?!’ Because I want it to sound fresh.”
Her philosophy: the working process is everything; the delivery, not at first. The pianist likens herself to a carpenter or a construction worker. (“You really have to work at it.”) But by the time she takes the stage to perform, she totally forgoes the process. Everything then effortlessly flows, becoming festive and celebratory.
“Whenever you play, you’re feeling the conductor, the audience, the whole stage. You even feel the air-con (laughs). I look at myself as a mediator. Playing piano is a way of channeling things. And I get the vibrations from everywhere. Not only am I feeling the keys, but I’m also sensing the energy of the orchestra. I’m feeling the energy of Tita Nedy,” shares Cecile, pointing upward.
The pianist’s latest concert was originally planned by Zenaida “Nedy” Tantoco back in September of 2023. It was Nedy who was insistent on Cecile maintaining her connection with the Filipino audience. The Met concert turned out to be Nedy’s last initiative for the pianist, as the patroness passed away on Feb. 8 this year. It was Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda who ensured that the event pushed through, rallying support from the key players in the Philippine cultural sphere. The concert, which aligns with the observance of National Women’s Month and is a heartfelt tribute to Nedy Tantoco, was a collaboration among the Office of Senator Legarda, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the CCP, and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) Society.
Cecile Licad performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, B-flat Minor, Op. 23 with the PPO under the baton of Polish conductor Grzegorz Nowak. The pianist has only good words to say about Maestro Nowak, a perfectionist just like herself. “With him, I felt at ease. The vibes were right,” she reveals. After the performance, Licad was treated like a pop star: music students ambushing her for selfies, fans asking the iconic pianist to autograph their programs.
In one of her three encores, she played Dedication (Widmung), a composition by Robert Schumann and arranged by Franz Liszt, as a tribute to her dearly departed friend. A line from it goes, “Du hebst mich liebend über mich.” (You lift me lovingly above myself.)
The Ave Maria quote at the end fits like a prayer, explains Cecile, trying to hold back tears.
“When I play, that’s where I can cry. I can convey my emotions through my fingers. I was at home in New York when I learned the news about Tita Nedy. For some reason, I didn’t want to believe it, at first, but then I heard it from Lulu (Casas).” Cecile cried herself to sleep.
“I was just talking to Tita Nedy a month ago. She was preparing for this show, super active in every detail. She was an action lady. She makes things happen. My connection with Tita Nedy became deeper every time we got together in Manila. Parang soulmates kami without seeing each other all the time.”
The pianist laments how she has lost someone who gives her honest feedback.
“That’s very important for an artist. Tita Nedy was somebody who understood me. If I was frustrated about something, I would tell her, ‘This is what I would like to do artistically.’ She would always answer, ‘Of course, you have to do what you’re good at.’ She was always interested in how I could challenge myself as an artist. I know I can’t control every aspect of my personal life, but where I’m good at is in my fingers, with my piano.”
What’s her most treasured memory of Nedy Tantoco?
Every moment with her was special, answers Cecile. “I have (this string of) good-luck beads, which I found on a beach in Iloilo. I always have it in my bag. Kaso naputol, nasira sa New York. Tita Nedy told me, ‘Give it to me. I will have it fixed.’”
It’s those little things that mean a lot.
“Tita Nedy would send flowers wherever I stayed, beautifully arranged flowers.” When Cecile came back to Manila a couple of weeks ago and was staying with the Tantocos, she found flowers in her bedroom. A sign from the patroness, perhaps?
Licad says, “Nedy’s son, Anton (Huang), is incredible. He’s willing to learn, so open-minded. And he aims to continue what Tita Nedy started.”
Anton has a tough road ahead of him. He says, “My mom does have a lot of pending projects, and I’d very much like to see those projects through. Not just with the PPO. She was very much active in the arts and culture scene. She had her advocacies and was very passionate about them. She was also planning another concert with Cecile. Cecile and our family go way back — even to the time of my grandparents. I would love to continue cultivating the relationship with her and finding opportunities for her to come back to Manila and share her talent.”
When the pianist dedicated the Schumann-Liszt piece to Nedy, it was an emotional moment for Anton.
“When you’re seated at the right side of the theater, you can see Cecile playing, her fingers moving up and down, and you get mesmerized by all that. Not just in terms of the sound, but likewise the movement of her fingers. I listened. I watched. I was so focused on all of that. But it was only when Cecile introduced the piece… that’s when it hit me,” says Anton, his voice becoming sadder than the saddest of adagios.
“That it’s actually my mom’s last concert.”
Soon, Cecile Licad will go back to New York City, learn Scott Joplin or Bill Evans pieces for an upcoming project, watch murder series on Netflix in the small hours, maybe cook some adobo, most probably clean the apartment like crazy, and spray her clothes with a vodka-peppermint-eucalyptus concoction of her own invention. Just an ordinary Filipina living in America? To a certain degree, yes. But this woman can coax joy, sadness, even the lightning bolts of the gods from those extraordinary fingers.