Music in the Key of C

TAKE A RETIRED MUSICIAN, seven government workers, a doctor, a technician in a hospital, six teachers, an accountant, a bank employee, a video editor, a generous number of students, occasionally two members of the Air Force and a motley assortment of professionals and salaried workers, put musical instruments in their hands and what do you get?

Why, that sounds like the recipe for the Metro Manila Community Orchestra!

Their backgrounds may be a cacophony of different persuasions, but the music this half a hundred music lovers make is definitely not dissonant.

Ranging in age from 16 to 60, the members of the Metro Manila Community Orchestra (MMCO) meet every Monday and Friday–after office and school hours, of course, given that most of the orchestra members have full time day jobs–to make beautiful music under the strict tutelage of Josefino "Chino" Toledo, the orchestra’s music director and conductor. They go through a vast orchestral repertoire that includes classical symphonies, popular classics, Filipino favorites and what is euphemistically called "emerging" music.

Since it was founded six years ago by the Institute for Orchestral Development in the Philippines (IODP), which is affiliated with the Center for Applied Music at Miriam College in Quezon City, the orchestra has brought the power of beautiful music to thousands of people, having performed in concert halls and town plazas, in schools and churches, in the manicured lawns of gated subdivisions and the busy atria of shopping malls. In this manner it lives up to its name and calling of being a "community" orchestra.

IODP executive director Chinggay Lagdameo, who recently joined the institute after sterling stints in the academe, the stage and the cultural scene, explains that the idea was to have an orchestra that is not tied or confined to a particular school, corporation or institution. "Open auditions are held," she reveals, and anyone interested who can play an instrument can come and audition. Music director Toledo and IODP trustee Alfonso "Coke" Bolipata pick the musicians based solely on ability, regardless of age, education, background or other such characteristics totally irrelevant to making music.

Of the six members from academe, for example, only one is from Miriam College. The youngest member the orchestra has had was 13-year-old violinist Clarisse Toledo, who joined in 2000 and who is still a member; currently, the youngest is 16-year-old flutist Crystal Rodis. The most senior is principal bassoon player Gerry Villanueva, a retired musician who Lagdameo remembers from her days at the Metropolitan Theater in Manila.

"Through the MMCO the spirit of community comes alive," says IODP chair and Miriam College president Dr. Patricia Licuanan. "It is a collection of persons of different ages and diverse backgrounds, bound together by innate talent and common passion, working in an atmosphere of commitment, encouragement and teamwork. Taken individually, each person is a separate entity. But when performing as part of the whole orchestra, a most melodious, united and beautiful harmony is created, freeing the mind, soothing the soul and lifting the spirit."

Music lovers can delight in the orchestra’s melodious harmonies as it embarks on its fifth concert season–billed "Xtreme Classix" with an MTV-esque twist to the name–this month, opening with an invitational gala on Wednesday, August 31, at the Francisco Santiago Hall at the Equitable-PCIBank Tower I in Makati. The orchestra performs with Cebu-born but now Europe-based pianist Aima Maria Labra-Makk, who returns to Manila after a successful full house performance in 2003 at the Cultural Center’s Filipino Artists Series. She will perform the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3. The evening’s repertoire will also include Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, Abelardo’s Mountain Suite and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin.

The second installment of the season comes on November 19, when the orchestra performs with pianist Christine Coyiuto in the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 3 at the Fine Arts Theater of the International School in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

Trustee Bolipata takes the stage with the orchestra on February 11, 2006 in Bartok’s Violin Concert No. 2 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Main Theater, as part of the annual National Arts Month celebration.

The February concert will also be the culmination of a unique project that the orchestra is undertaking, aptly called "Music Underkonstruction", an orchestral reading of new works by emerging Filipino composers. Submission of works is until October 7 and is open to composers who are members of the Asian Composers League-Philippines. Non-members who want to submit entries are welcome to join the league to be eligible. Compositions should be for symphony orchestra or a work for voice and orchestra and must never have been performed in public.

The orchestral reading of submitted works will be held on November 7, 11, 14 and 18 at Miriam College’s Music Center in Katipunan. Pieces chosen from the readings will be performed during the February 11 season ending concert, a rare privilege and honor for new composers.

"The purpose of this reading is to encourage the creation and performance of new works by young Filipino art-music composers," Lagdameo explains.

To be the best one can be, to create change in the Philippine social environment, and to achieve this through music and performance remain the working dream and vision of the orchestra.

Through the years, the MMCO has embodied the spirit of community and the power of music. Together with their benefactors and partners–including, for this season, Ayala Westgrove, mco Foundation, Lyric Piano and Equitable-PCIBank–they strive to expand the range of entertainment beyond mall and pop culture, to the realm of audience appreciation and development of musical artists outside the walls of the conservatory and the academe.

"It is a wonderful sight to see the audience react with an exciting yet quiet smile and loud applause when the orchestra performs romantic interludes from Bach and Shostakovich to pieces by the Beatles and Maestro San Pedro," enthuses Lagdameo.

* * *

For more information on the MCCO, call the Music Center at Miriam College, tel 426-1822.