A gathering of music lovers & true-blue Pen loyalists

Early last December, The Lobby (including The Upper Lobby and The Gallery) of The Peninsula Manila was filled to the rafters as music lovers, grand dames from nearby Forbes, Dasmariñas and Urdaneta villages and true-blue Pen loyalists trooped in as early 3 p.m. in order to get choice seats for the annual Christmas Concert at The Pen – the hotel’s eagerly awaited gift to its friends, supporters and patrons.

One essential ingredient of Christmas has always been joyous music, and in Makati that can only mean one thing — the annual Christmas Concert at The Pen. For 25 years, this Christmas concert has marked the real beginning of the holiday season in the metropolis as the lofty three-tiered Lobby of The Peninsula Manila takes on a cathedral-like ambience and is filled with the joyful sounds of Christmas.

The country’s premier orchestra, the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) rendered the much-loved carols and music that provided the perfect prelude for the holiday season.

The evening had everything needed for a perfect concert — guest conductor Maestro Ruggero Barbieri was at the helm of the PPO, and adding to the festive musical fare were sopranos Rachelle Gerodias and Camille Lopez-Molina, tenor Abdul Candao and the incomparable University of the Philippines Concert Chorus.

This surfeit of musical talent and artistry combined delivered an unforgettable and inspiring afternoon of beautiful music — among them Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, the “Habanera” from Bizet’s Carmen, the “Triumphal March” from Verdi’s Aida,   Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, De Leon-Celerio’s immortal classic Pasko Na Naman, culminating with the glorious “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah.

Since Christmas is a time of giving, especially when it comes to children, The Peninsula Manila decided that the 25th anniversary concert was a time to break from tradition and made the concert a benefit project for children. As such, concertgoers were asked to contribute a P490+++ fee (consumable with selections from a special merienda menu), with 50 percent of the proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation which grants the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses.

“The Peninsula Manila is proud to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation,” says Jonathan H. Crook, general manager of The Peninsula Manila. “We have had a long relationship with the Make-A-Wish Foundation but wanted to continue and expand this tradition of charitable giving at our hotel that would involve our staff, guests and visitors. The Christmas Concert at The Pen — as well as the Peninsula-wide Trees of Hope campaign — is designed to add beauty to the hotel both musically, physically and spiritually, and to enrich the lives of the children touched by the Make-A-Wish Foundation this Christmas season.”

Making the event possible were co-sponsors Stores Specialists, Inc. (SSI), the pioneering purveyor of many famous American, British and European luxury designer labels in the Philippines; Philippine Tatler, whose publisher Irene Martel Francisco has also been a mainstay of this event in recent years; CitiBank (“Citi Never Sleeps”); and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, which sees events like this as an extension of its brief to bring music to a wider audience.