GMS Generations / Update on Elielle

The initials GMS stand for the Greenhills Music Studio headed by Prof. Carmencita Arambulo. GMS recently marked its 39th anniversary at the F. Santiago Hall with a recital that exhibited amazingly diverse music and talent.

Compositions included jazz — Mrs. Arambulo began as a jazz pianist — classic and contemporary, and songs composed by participants. Performers’ ages ranged from six to 40 and above; instruments were the piano, the strings — violins, violas and cellos — which constituted the GMS String Ensemble — and synthesizers.

It was only some years back that Mrs. A (as she is fondly called) became a fervent advocate of the Suzuki Music Method which was introduced by a German-trained Japanese violinist whose primary belief was that every child can be taught to appreciate and play music.

Demonstrating the effectivity of the Suzuki Method were the remarkably fluid and fluent performances of eight-year old pianist Patrick Allen Sy in the third movement of Haydn’s Piano Concerto in C, assisted by the GMS String Ensemble, and of seven-year old Jodeline Michaela Pecson in the first movement of Vivaldi’s Concerto in A Minor, likewise assisted by the strings and pianist Gigi Gomez-Arambulo.

Pianist Franco Liwanag essayed with much élan Gershwin’s Three Preludes; the brother-sister team of violinist Ira Aclan, 12 and pianist Sergei Aclan spiritedly interpreted Clebanoff’s Millionaire’s Hoedown, with the audience providing hearty hand-clapping for the square dance. Violinist Jasmine Balbutin, 18, and pianist Chloe Canton played the first movement of Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole with marked competence.

Most participants were extremely young, particularly the children violinists, many being virtual toddlers. The professional touch was provided by Carolyn Kleine Cheng (now head of the UP College of Music Piano Department) and Rollie Guingona (Piano 2) in Piazolla’s Libertango, and again by Cheng, with Katherine Fernandez Asis (Piano 2) in Le Grand Tango. Both were summa cum laude graduates of the UP College of Music.

The Arambulos assumed major roles: Ariel, Mrs. A’s versatile son, played the piano, the violin and the drums: on the piano, his composition God’s Gift, with Prof. Herrick Ortiz on the cello; on the violin, his composition Immaculate Mother Variations; on the drums, Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude, with pianists Jonathan Coo and Chloe Canton playing the original form, the GMS Alumni Pop Ensemble, Sol Garcia-Bautista and Cheng on synthesizers, and Mrs. A also on percussion jazzing it up. What a spectacular finale!

Ariel’s wife Gigi Gomez was occasional assisting pianist sister Rica played and sang her own four compositions.

Louie Ocampo’s popular love songs — Patti’s Lullaby, this interpreted on the violin by daughter Patricia and a well-loved medley received rapturous applause for singers Jay and Tanya Marquez and Ocampo on the piano. Maritess Salientes Bloom and her excellent partner danced to Irish Lullaby and Libere.

Olson’s Perpetual Commotion, as played with fitting vibrance and vitality by Franco Liwanag and Joshua del Mundo (Piano 1) and Daniel Jang and Sergei Aclan (Piano 2), ages 12 to 14, opened the recital whose title "GMS Generations" eloquently pointed up GMS’ auspicious success through the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s. Many graduates have become professionals or teachers with their own private students, or teachers in GMS and other schools. Countless graduates have sent their children and grandchildren to GMS.

Eminent violinist Rizalina E. Buenaventura taught at GMS; pianist Rowena Arrieta, a laureate in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky International Competition, remains GMS’ most distinguished alumna.

The brilliant pianist Elielle Viaje, a former GMS student, is doing excellently at the Praynor Conservatory in Vienna. Except for a course in English, the rest of her subjects are in German. Amazingly, however, she is in the honor roll with an average of 1.5 and topping her class of 32 with a grade of 1 in Math.

Elielle, who just turned 15, has adjusted to a drastically new environment without parental guidance. Incidentally, she is financially on her own, having inadvertently missed a scholarship.

Those wishing to extend financial assistance to such an admirably courageous, determined and outstanding young girl can contact her parents, Lt. Col. Mike and Wina Viaje, at Rm. 18, TOQ Camacho St., Camp Aguinaldo, QC, tel. 9122365.