UP grand alumni ball Kabayao quintet at Cosmo

What a way to close the UP centennial celebrations: a grand ball to outdo all the grand balls the UP has held during the last 100 years! The grand event, dubbed “The Last Hurrah: A Grand Centennial Ball,” to be hosted by the UP Alumni Association, Inc. (UPAA), will be held December 16 (Tuesday, next week), starting at 6 p.m., at the Philippine International Convention Center.

Activities will feature a grand centennial raffle with a Mercedes Benz and a Nissan Sedan as grand prizes, a dinner-dance, food by Via Mare, live retro music from the country’s top performers, cultural presentations, and surprise numbers by UP alumni celebrities. There will also be a trade fair and exhibit, nude painting sessions and visual art exhibitions, cocktails and coffee areas, ethnic and acoustic music at the PICC lobbies, a tour booth for UP alumni balikbayans organized by the Department of Tourism.

Among the grand ball sponsors are the Department of Tourism, San Miguel Corporation, McDonald’s, and Union Bank.

Proceeds from the event will finance professorial chairs of the university and its other advocacies.

Tickets are still available, at P1,500 per head, or P18,000 for a table for 12 persons.

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I met three of the UPAA committee in charge of the grand centennial ball — Fe Tantiangsu, Josie Roldan Saddul, and Rory Ortega — all beauties up to this time, though they graduated from UP Diliman in the sixties. The trio, along with UPAA president Gari Tiongco, has been like moving heaven and earth to attend to a million things — selling tickets, rounding up sponsors, preparing the menu (they showed me the menu for the sitdown dinner for 2,600 persons! and it sure looked yummy), contacting old friends and relatives by email and endless telephone calls and texting. 

Fe, Josie and Rory were dormmates in college, and during our lunch, they talked about the wondrous life they led, their callers, their escapades and eating sessions in the rooms which was bawal. They have been in touch with each other during these last 50 years, but making the grand ball a big success has been keeping them busier than ever. To the three, our best wishes!

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The world famous Kabayao Quintet will perform at Cosmopolitan Church on Taft Ave. on December 14 beginning 5:30 p.m. The concert is part of the 75th founding anniversary celebration of the church located on Taft Ave., across the Philippine General Hospital. Admission is free.

The quintet is composed of Gilopez Kabayao and Corazon Pineda Kabayao, international concert violinist and pianist, and their three musically-gifted children, Sicilienne, Farida and Gilberto.

The Kabayao family has been described as holding “an unparalleled artistry that weaves distinction from among the musicians in the Philippines and perhaps even from other countries, for they are not only respected and admired for the exceptional music they create; they possess a gift that not only inspires but uplifts souls, as they collectively dedicate their musical talents to the Lord above.

“Logging hundreds of thousands of miles in their musical sojourn even when the children were barely able to tuck violins under their chins, the family has given innumerable lecture-recitals in schools all over the Philippines for the purpose of building an appreciative audience for fine music and in a continuing music ministry in evangelistic church concerts in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Canada and the United States. For the Cosmopolitan concert, they will present a varied program of classical favorites, Philippine music, Christmas songs and Praise Music.

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Violin virtuoso Gilopez’s commitment to introduce classical music to Filipino audiences began in the 1950s after his successful debut at the famed Carnegie Hall in New York. He gave performances in the most unlikely places — cockpits, dilapidated movie houses, open air quadrangles, basketball courts, hospital corridors and school cafeterias. For his virtuosity and valuable contribution and promotion of Philippine music, he has been honored with the Presidential Award of Merit for Music, the TOYM, honorary doctorate degrees from Central Philippine University, the University of the Philippines, and the 1972 President Ramon Magsaysay Award, the highest recognition in Asia for outstanding public service.

He continues to be soloist, conductor, musical crusader, arranger, and of late, a teacher. And he is the father of three gifted children, who with their mother, make so beautiful music together.

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Corazon Pineda Kabayao is the perfect match for Gilopez. She has a Bachelor of Music, magna cum laude, from UST, and received the University Rector’s Medal, the highest recognition for academic excellence conferred on a graduating student. She was twice winner of the Manila Symphony Young People’s Competition and was featured soloist with the Manila Symphony Orchestra even during her student days.

Corazon’s and Gilopez’s partnership, began 40 years ago, has brought classical and Philippine music to hundreds of schools and thousands of students all over the Philippines.

The husband and wife team has won several awards — Outstanding Filipinos Overseas Award, Catholic Mass Media Award for their CD recording of 13 Philippine folk songs, PILAK Award (Cultural Center of the Philippines), Gawad Alab ng Haraya (National Commission for Culture & the Arts), and the Gawad CCP Para Sa Sining Award (CCP).

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Sicilienne joined the NAMCYA at age 10 and won in Voice and Violin Category A, resulting in an invitation to the Young Winners’ Concert in Hong Kong where she was the only featured violinist. She has a bachelor’s degree in broadcast communication from the UP in the Visayas, and has taught Humanities at Central Philippine University in Iloilo City. She joined her parents in concerts since she was 3, and has since traveled and performed with the family in the Philippines, Japan, Canada, the US, and other countries in Asia.