Stores Specialists Inc., Tatler and Citibank present Christmas Concert at the Pen

MANILA, Philippines - Four top corporations — Stores Specialists Inc., Philippine Tatler, Citibank, and The Peninsula Manila — will join hands once again to present the now traditional Christmas Concert at the Pen lobby on Sunday, Dec. 12, at 5 p.m. The beneficiary of this concert is the Make-A-Wish Foundation that grants the wishes of terminally sick children.

Now in its 27th year, the concert is the Peninsula Manila’s Christmas gift to the community, hand in hand with its principal corporate partners Stores Specialists Inc., Philippine Tatler, and Citibank.

Flying in from Italy where he is now based to conduct the musical extravanganza is former Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra’s music director and principal conductor Maestro Ruggero Barbieri who has been the mainstay of this event for most of the past decade.

The PPO, which is the featured orchestra and participates through the kind sponsorship of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, was one of just five foreign orchestras invited to take part in “Asia Orchestra Festival Week 2002” in Tokyo’s City Opera Hall.

Also participating is Olivier Ochanine, PPO music director and principal conductor. Having studied the flute in Germany and the US, and then the contrabass in the United States as well, he developed an interest in orchestral conducting while pursuing the Bachelor Degree for flute performance at the University of Kentucky.      

The featured choir this year is the University of Santo Tomas Singers. Founded in 1992, it is a mixed choral ensemble composed of a select group of students and alumni of UST, the oldest university in Asia, under the baton of its founder and conductor, professor Fidel Gener Calalang.  

Featured as a solo artist is Bea Tantoco who has been singing since she got her first Sony CD player when she was five years old. At seven, she fell in love with Broadway and was soon able to sing all the classics from Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, and Cats. In high school, Bea joined a choir that performed for outreach programs in several Philippine provinces. 

Bea graduated from Boston College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music. This performing artist has starred in various live performances.

Providing variety on the trumpet is Fredeline “Poppee” Parin, principal trumpet player of the PPO. He started training at the age of eight with his father, Emiliano Parin — principal trumpet player of the Manila Symphony Orchestra for 20 years — as his first teacher. 

The Peninsula Manila general manager Jonathan Crook advises those who want to catch the concert to come early. Seats that come with a consumable cover charge of P550++ are on a first-come, first-served basis.