Classical music:  The living, the breathing art

The most damning thing ever said about classical music is that it is refined and ancient. In 2004, a critic from the New Yorker, Alex Ross, then only 36, argued the inherent wrongness in the term “classical music.” It traps a tenaciously living art in a theme park of the past. It cancels out the possibility that music in the spirit of Beethoven could still be created today... I wish there were another name...  When people hear classical, they think dead. The music is described in terms of its distance from the present, its resistance to the masses — what it is not.

People have been rattling on about classical music as dead the way they do about the death of cinema. If it’s dead, then why are there still festivals, screenings, and the occasional news of this and that young filmmaker bagging top prizes at some prestigious European competition? Just because something fails to appear on the entertainment pages of major broadsheets doesn’t mean it’s dead. In the same vein, an appearance on The Buzz isn’t really indicative of life either.  If classical music is dead in the Philippines, then it surely must be, to use Ross’ magnificent metaphor, an ageless diva on a non-stop farewell tour, coming around for one absolutely final appearance.

Classical music remains alive because of small, defiant pockets of energy, defiant if only for the fact that they insist on the music’s purity in the face of the tyranny of throat-grabbing reality, tireless guerilla fighters for the music they adore. It is easy to be cynical about art from the 16th and 17th centuries in the age of a rice crisis, skyrocketing petroleum prices, and Iron Man. But it is boneheaded to contend that classical music is elitist if only for the audience it purportedly attracts. If ticket prices and luxury vehicles on the parking grounds were gauges of wealth, then you could say Beyoncé Knowles is a much more snobbish act. In fact, you see more rich Filipinos flocking to nostalgia reunions of paunchy, balding foreign rock ‘n’ roll acts the Western Top 40 has already forgotten.

But, to quote that line from the movie Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come.” Filfest is Insular Life’s attempt to sustain a stream of classical performances stretching from May to October at the Insular Life Theater in Filinvest Corporate City in Alabang. Insular Life is the largest Filipino life insurance company that has also been known as a supporter of Filipino arts and artistic talents.  Turning 100 years in 2010, Insular Life has started gearing up for its centennial this early with a lineup of activities that will herald not only its contributions as a business organization, but also its continuing support to uplifting the quality of life of the Filipino.   

Filfest is, therefore, the first offering of Insular Life to the public. Filfest has an exciting list of musicians, with its balanced mix of the established and the new, and the repertoire is tempered by both the familiar and the challenging. And its notions of the familiar certainly do not insult our intelligence (For one, Manuel Velez’s “Sa Kabukiran” never fails to lift spirits every time, regardless of how many times it’s been used in a soy-sauce commercial).

Filfest’s inaugural gala happens on May 24 with the country’s finest, violinist Alfonso ”Coke” Bolipata and pianist Jovianney Emmanuel Cruz, along with celebrated Korean cellist Sung-Won Yang. Together with the 60-piece Metro Manila Community Orchestra under the baton of Josefino “Chino” Toledo, they perform works by Massenet, Velez, Bruch, and Rachmaninoff. All three collaborate (or jam, to use a criminally un-classical term) on a piece by the Russian Romantic composer Anton Arensky (1861-1906).

The rest of the calendar includes: “Breathless” on June 7, with soprano Deeda Barretto, baritone Lionel Guico, and acclaimed pianist Najib Ismail. On June 21, an all-Filipino repertoire in FILharmoniKA “Filipiniana” with conductor Gerard Salonga, including a jazz piece by Angel Pena played on sax by Berklee alumnus, the legendary Tots Tolentino, as well as compositions by Antonino Buenaventura and Lucio San Pedro. “Latin Heat” on July 5 featuring Ballet Philippines; “Of Czechs and Euros” with cellist Renato Lucas and pianist Nena del Rosario-Villanueva playing Dvorak, Martinu, and Grieg. On August 30, Salonga and the FILharmoniKA return to accompany a showdown of laureates of the 2006 Ultimate Pianist Competition; a solo recital by Cebu-born-now-Austria-based Aima Labra-Makk on Sept. 13; an all-Mozart program on Oct. 11 with Coke Bolipata and Cruz again; and a splendor of voices from Oct. 25 to 26 in Opera Miniscola, featuring Mozart’s The Impressario and Menotti’s The Telephone.

According to Insular Life’s assistant vice-president for public relations Ana Soriano, this is the biggest grant Insular Life is giving to any single project. Filfest is merely a continuation of Insular Life’s commitment to Filipino artistic heritage. Well-known, of course, is Insular’s collection of Amorsolo paintings. It has also provided a venue for the once fledgling Repertory Philippines in its Ayala Avenue building.

Opened in 2002, the Insular Life Theater in Filinvest, Alabang can seat 529, and is said to possess excellent acoustics. In the last few years, its usage has run the gamut of performances, from recitals, musicals, and plays of neighboring schools and organizations, to international piano festival of Opusfest, rock ‘n’ roll concerts of RJ Jacinto, weekend plays of Repertory Philippines, and concerts by Cecille Licad, the UP Madrigal Singers, the Pundaquit Virtuosi and the UP Singing Ambassadors, to name a few.  Insular Life through Filfest envisions not just its own calendar of activities, but an entire cultural renaissance in the Metro Manila south itself.

The organizational dynamo behind Filfest is a new group called Filfest Cultural Foundation formed when Jovianney Cruz, along with wife Tinky approached Bubut delos Santos, Chinggay Lagdameo, Donna May Lina, Vicky Zubiri, Maria Pedrosa, Denise Manosa, Lina Racho, Tricie Sison, Bettina Pou, Marilen Espiritu, and Gia Suarez, a spirited group of Alabang residents who were only too happy to accept Insular Life’s generous grant and foster a vibrant season of cultural performances in their neck of the woods.

A state-of-the-art auditorium way down south might come as a surprise even to many south residents themselves, but Filfest is making sure they experience the magic of the Insular Life’s new Alabang theater coming of age. To keep ticket costs down, Filfest has relied further on the help of Alabang’s premiere hotel The Bellevue Manila, official residence of Filfest artists, and Ayala Westgrove Heights. Other major sponsors are BMW, UBE Media, Britanny Bay, and LG Electronics, while Smart Infinity, Lyric Piano, Air 21, Burger King, HenLin, Bravo!, Alba’s, and Café Ano complete the list of generous Filfest donors. 

The metropolitan south as an artistic epicenter? Yes, please, especially considering the realities in place, in spite of how petty they seem. The perennial traffic gridlock that chokes the South Superhighway, Coastal Road, and all other thoroughfares is enough to draw a sharp geographic and psychological divide. As many culture vultures know, if you live in Alabang, sometimes it can be such a struggle to get to the CCP, let alone the Abelardo Hall.

But for scores and scores of musicians, just the news of another venue opening is cause to celebrate. We’re very thankful to Insular for this series, says Hyun Joo Lee, co-founder and co-artistic director of the Clarion Chamber Ensemble, the only group in the country solely devoted to chamber music. It performs an all-Baroque repertoire on Sept. 27, with pieces from Bach (both J.S. and C.P.E), Tartini, Handel, and Mozart.

Because of traffic, people now jokingly speak of the south of Metro Manila as if it were an alien landscape. Las Piñas, Parañaque, Alabang invitations to events held here seem to have become a serious imposition. Just the mental image of the South Superhighway frozen in a static river of headlights is enough to weaken one’s resolve. But beginning on May 24 is a series of performances for which traffic becomes the most pathetic excuse. And the price? At P250  per show if you buy the season tickets (you’ll pay much more for Air Supply in June), you have no reason to be absent. The works of dead composers remain capable of springing endless surprises in the imagination like no other sound. When it comes to the ability to take the soul to uncharted heights, there is no loftier music form than classical.