Leaving us bereaved

A poem that appears in my last poetry collection, Poems Singkwenta’y Cinco (Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2012), is titled “The Deaths, The Deaths.” Here are some lines, from the start and the end:

“In the boys’ room at San Beda College one February/ in the late Fifties, I heard and sobbed over a urinal:/ a plane had crashed in Iowa, and Buddy Holly/ and the Crickets were gone, along with La Bamba./ The music died, we were to sing years later.//…

“Today cellphones tell us and we pass it on, so-and-so/

or such-and-such just left us bereaved, and oh how// (so we think) we knew him or her so very, very well.”

I recall this because the past fortnight has been unkind to our arts and culture community, what with a series of sudden farewells that leave us bereaved.

On July 4, our poet-friend Tony Serrano went on ahead. Per the website of Likhaan: University of the Philippines Institute of Creative Writing, Anthony F.V. Serrano, former administrative officer of the UP ICW, expired on that Friday morning at their residence in San Ildefonso, Bulacan.

His interment was held last Saturday morning. I can only be so sorry that distance and the exigencies of work prevented me from joining in the formal farewell to dear Tony. We had laughed a lot together, drank together, exchanged notes and anecdotes the way only informal archivists could — inclusive of coordinates for writer-friends as well as campus belles in Diliman of the ’80s and ’90s.

The year before he retired from UP, Tony finally had his own first book of poetry, Quantum Fluctuations, published by UST Publishing House. Buddy Juaniyo Arcellana and I raced to review it, laughing all the way to our memory banks as to the derivation of his poem-and-collection title.

Buddy Butch Dalisay, current ICW director, says it best in his description of Tony Serrano as a “friend, guide, and confidant of generations of UP Writers Workshop fellows” and “the writing community’s unofficial keeper of secrets; and the source, we sometimes suspect, of riotously good but probably apocryphal stories about writers and their escapades.”

The overly solicitous, soft-spoken man called “Mang Tony” by young and upcoming writers who came to UP-ICW for something or other was more than just a part of the ICW from its inception in 1978 up to 2006, when he retired. Why, he was Mr. CWC when it was still a Center. Then he became Mr. ICW.

Paalam, Kaibigang Tony.

Before Tony passed away, we heard of how the veteran stage, film and television actress Amable “Ama” Quiambao had collapsed while performing onstage at the CCP. The heart attack proved fatal.

I’m sure I’ve seen “Ama” performing in not a few plays, but my ragged memory suggests uncertainty over any possible familiarity with her much-admired stage presence back in the early days of PETA or Philippine Educational Theater Association. From all current accounts and plaudits, however, it was a formidable presence.

Farewell, Ama, and thank you for your role in strengthening Philippine theater.

Just a little over a week after Ama Quiambao left us, another prime mover in Philippine theater, the very young and energetic Elmar Beltran Ingles, also went on ahead, at only 49 years of age, reportedly due to complications from diabetes.

A playwright, journalist, editor and cultural educator, Elmar was also executive director of the Philippine Legitimate Artists Group as well as OPM (Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit), president of Telon Playwrights Circle, a member of the Optical Media Board, and head of the Subcommission on Cultural Dissemination of NCCA or National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

With the NCCA, he had previously served as chairman of its Cultural Education Committee as well as Head of the Subcommission for Cultural Heritage. It was while he served as NCCA commissioner that I had the privilege of communicating often with Elmar, especially on the insider goings-on that led to that National Artist Awards bawas-dagdag fiasco a few years ago.

That attempt at self-mockery continues to take its undue toll, as at least one “legitimate” NA awardee has since passed away without benefit of state honors and interment at Libingan ng mga Bayani. The protested case still lies dormant among the voluminous files seeking a way out of controversy before the Supreme Court. Maybe it’s what holds back the long-awaited next round of nominations and processing all the way through to presidential proclamation. 

I will remember Elmar’s principled, activist stance throughout that needless kerfuffle. He stood his ground as NCCA commissioner and joined, nay, maybe even helped spearhead, the necessary protest against the attempted folly. Thanks for that and everything else you’ve done as a Pinoy culture worker, Elmar. Paalam, kaibigan.

The last wake I attended happened to be the one for National Artist Eddie Romero several weeks ago. Now another legitimate National Artist has left us: Andrea O. Veneracion, 85, who passed away last Tuesday evening.

“Tita Andy” founded the globally acclaimed Philippine Madrigal Singers or “Madz” in 1963, and served as choirmaster for decades. Even if she had been comatose for some time, it’s still a pity that she left a month before the first Andrea Veneracion International Choral Festival is held in all venues of the CCP, gathering together choirs from all over the country as well as the rest of the world in competition from Aug. 8 to 11 — in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Madz. 

Of the numerous textual tributes to AOV that I’ve read in Facebook, a couple that stand out happen to come from lady friends.

Writer Corinna Nuqui offers an elegant piece titled “Why the UP Madrigal Singers Move Me So Much”:

“Because they sit in a semicircle sitting shoulder to shoulder, and because their conductor gives subtle nonverbal cues, to me, it seems almost like magic. I think that is what struck me first, as a child, watching the performances, marvelling at the very sensitive, close way the singers read each other and the conductor through the smallest gestures of breath, posture, voice. Because their voices blend, their notes are true, the very breaths they take are tightly cohered, the madrigals become more than the sum of individual voices. The beauty in the singing is not just that the singers read music by sight, they also read by heart, reading phrases memorized in their heads and moving in ways their bodies remember, to keep in step with each other and the music. Perhaps because they are Filipino, and who more than a Filipino to rely on for a nuanced nonverbal language while navigating a sung one? Perhaps because they were nurtured by a gifted conductor, who enforced with a gentility I can only guess at, the application of each single voice into a coherent and beautiful choral whole. Perhaps I am over-reaching, because I am not a musician, nor a singer, but the singular precision and discipline in their musicality makes me long for closer approximations of beauty whenever I hear them, because their sound is so close to perfection. The closest thing to flying without a net, in terms of singing in a choir, no notes, no baton, no instruments but the body and the voice. A choir of voices is a wonderful way to embody transcendence over individual differences, all the while paying attention to nuance, arrangement, and generosity. What makes the UP Madrigal Singers wonderful is that with the discipline of being rooted, close, coherent and interlocked via gestural cues from the conductor and choirmates, each performance is really the work of an ensemble.”

Then there’s an equally delightful reminiscence from our special friend, professional food stylist Editha Antenor, who calls it “a funny story”:

“After hearing me play Bach and Mozart during the nationwide auditions for a PHSA (Philippine High School for the Arts) scholarship, Ma’m Andrea Veneracion was the lady who suggested I seriously consider majoring in Piano instead of Painting. And I did, to the utter shock of the St. Scho art teachers who had recommended me for Visual Arts.

“I was 12 years old then. I had tried to give it my best shot that day, painting trees, etc. at the back of the CCP where the auditions were held. I realized I was simply no match for the talented kids around me. Forlorn, I submitted my work and quietly walked back down the hall towards the parking lot where my parents were waiting. I had given up.

“Then I heard music. Piano. The door, with a sign that read ‘Piano Auditions,’ was half open. I went in and sat on the chair next to the door, just to observe. Apparently, the kid who was playing was the last one to audition.

“When he was done, a mature lady in a flowery dress looked around, and seeing me sitting there, asked: ‘You. Are you auditioning?’ I said, ‘No, ma’m.’ Then she asked, ‘Then why are you here?’ I said, ‘Uhm, I like music.’ She probably found it unusual (the kid had played Saint Saens), so she asked if I also played piano, and I said “Yes, ma’m.’ ‘Come here,’ she said. ‘Play.’

“And so I played. Snippets of The Sting. This Masquerade. Somewhere My Love. And some other horrible pieces.

“’Stop!,’ she gasped. ‘Stop it right now!’ Exasperated, she asked if I could play classical. ‘Of course, ma’m. But I didn’t bring my sheets because I’m here to audition for Visual Arts.’

“’Really?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘Can you play Bach?’ ‘Yes, ma’m,’ and I played about six bars of Bach’s 3rd 2-3 Part Invention. ‘Can you play Mozart?’ ‘Yes, ma’m.’ And so I gave her six bars of Mozart’s famous Symphony 40 in G Minor.

“’Bakit putol-putol?,’ she asked. ‘Because I haven’t memorized any of them.’ ‘Who’s your teacher?’ ‘Mrs. Zenas Reyes-Lozada, ma’m.’ ‘Oh, of course I know Zenas,’ she said. ‘I suppose you can read notes. Here, play this.’

“She fished out J.S. Bach’s 2-3 Part Invention and ordered me, ‘Play!’

“And so I did. Not only did I play the first part. I finished all three parts, with the passion and fury of a frustrated 12-year-old visual artist who had given up on painting that day.

“The lady asked when I had finished, ‘How long have you been playing?’ I replied, ‘I’ve been playing since I was very small, ma’m. I like playing all kinds of music, but my favorite is JS Bach.’

“She held my hands gently, and said, ‘Go back to your parents now. Tell them that you are a very good pianist.’

“I got accepted as a piano scholar after my second, accidental audition that day. I said goodbye to SSC and went on to board in PHSA where I joined the company of the country’s most artistically-gifted students.

“I never saw Ma’m Andrea Veneracion after that. It was only much later when I found out who she was. I wish I had the chance to meet her again, to thank her for discovering my potential, for inspiring me and unwittingly lifting my spirits back as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed pianist and music lover that she saw in my heart.

“Thank you very much, Ma’m Andrea Veneracion. Godspeed.”