Calalang's glorious choir / Honors for Sunico, Alvarez

UST Rector Fr. Rolando V. de la Rosa, prior to the UST Singers’ thanksgiving concert at the CCP Theater, said a foreign ambassador had described the choir as “a national treasure”; using the words of St. Agustine, Fr. De la Rosa described it as “the splendor of order”.

Under conductor Fidel G. Calalang Jr. the singers are also the splendor of incredible discipline, tantalizing versatility and expressivity. Further, Fr. Rector called Calalang a “genius” which he is beyond doubt, devising widely diverse programs that cover every conceivable period and style. Calalang requires his singers to commit them to memory — a feat in itself — and thus to focus and concentrate on each interpretation with the fullest attention to expression and vocal technique or pyro-technique.

The choir’s versatility showed in “exploiting the human voice while portraying an irritating child” in the Luthanian song Erzinimal; in approximating various timbers of a wind ensemble for Alleluia; in sounding percussive in E. Paraluan’s Gapas; in singing a Monteverdi madrigal of the 17th century; or in rendering “Her Sacred Spirit Soars” in the Renaissance style, or going “full blast” in the Broadway medleys and Ragtime, or in being quietly reverential, then ending rousingly for the “Lord’s Prayer”.

The choir sang in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Ilocano, Visayan, evincing its versatility likewise in imitating virtually anything, animate or inanimate; earthly or unearthly: the howling wind, birds, the ticking of a clock, the incomparable Calalang drawing the maximum interpretative capacity from each singer. Soloists were Noel Azcona whose powerful voice and long-sustained end notes were beyond belief, Ronald Allan Bautista, Juan Alfonso Mendoza, Jemeson Tiburan, Vida Grace Mirang, Marie Adriano, Florencia Kustandi and Pilar Ramos.

Groupings were endlessly innovative and creative; lively movements enhanced vocal delivery, with various numbers ending in riveting, arresting poses.

In many selections, Calalang himself assisted on the piano while maintaining perfect rapport between him and the singers. He also arranged several songs.

The words “Unending Grace, Unending Praise” printed on the program cover aptly applied to the choir which garnered stormy applause after each rendition. The UST Singers, named “Choir of the World” twice in North Wales, UK, has received international awards far too many to mention. This time, the honors are a most valued distinction for UST’s 400 years in 2011.

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International concertist Raul Sunico, current UST Conservatory dean, has just been elected president of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, having been its VP and artistic director since 2009. How Sunico manages to be a brilliant performing artist — keeping his concert engagements abroad — while devising and implementing administrative programs at home has always been a source of wonder.

Sunico, besides, is a music educator. His piano arrangements of folk songs have won a children’s book award. He has also arranged and recorded revolutionary songs, and authored a text book series for elementary students.

He obtained an MM degree from NY’s Julliard and a Ph.D. degree, major in piano performance, from NYU where he wrote a performance guide to Philippine piano concertos.

As CCP head, he will pursue its artistic and physical development to make it a self-sustaining eco-friendly community for those who want to adopt the arts as a way of life.

Under Sunico’s initiative, the first National Orchestra Festival concert was held Sept. 21 wherein seven of the country’s finest ensembles played under PPO Conductor Olivier Ochanine.

The International Theater Institute (ITI) held a high-level round table on “Culture for Development”, presided by UNESCO’s Director General Irina Bokova at the UN, New York, last Sept. 21. The executive Council designated Cecile Guidote Alvarez as an official representative for its seminal discussion for her long-standing experience in initiating and implementing ITI programs.

ITI Sec. Gen. Tobias Biancone expressed confidence in Alvarez’s ability to implement ensuing conclusions with governments and civil society alike.