A revealing night of classical music

By Gerry Garcia

A RARE “evening of classical music” jointly sponsored by the city’s Center for Performing Arts and the Cultural Center of the Philippines made our day last Saturday but left us still wondering what the Pandaragupan Youth Orchestra (PYO) looks like . . . altho we admit we began to have a inkling of what the youth group is made up of . . . when a cute ensemble  of kid-violinists played a lilting minuet  with piano accompaniment shortly before the LNU Mixed Chorus belted out the ending number in the concert.

The kids played exceptionally well, even if they numbered less than a dozen only. They, we presumed, are part of the PYO’s string section.

If so, we’re still left wondering if the PYO, supposed to be a symphony orchestra in the making, has more members in its string section, like violists who play the viola and cellists who play the cello.

Since last Saturday evening’s concert was for the benefit of the Pandaragupan Youth Orchestra, the concert would have been more complete and meaningful if it at least featured the entire string section playing a selected number in the concert.

Even if this did not happen, we hope, in similar future concerts, we can hear the stirrings of a Pandaragupan Youth Orchestra in bloom.

* * * *

We have to hand it to fellow-columnist Gonz Duque and his LNU’s Glee Club (Mixed Chorus), including its all-male choral ensemble for adding variety to the concert.

Choice of the old St. John Cathedral as venue of the concert, though, did something to diminish our enjoyment in listening to the classics played that evening.

Not exactly intended as a concert hall, the church naturally did not have the ideal sound-absorbent quality or acoustics of a real concert hall. Our appreciation of the dual performance of soloist and piano accompanist, for instance, was considerably lessened by the inadequate and rather excessive resonance a resulting from the bad acoustics of the church hall, made even worse by powerful sound amplifiers.

* * * *

We reprint here’s few excerpts from the speech of Speaker Joe de Venecia when he made a pitch for  Federalism as the wave of the global  future  in last year’s 3rd International Conference on Federalism at the European  Parliament in Brussels:

Our 160-odd languages and dialects reflect our ethnic, religious and cultural diversities. Administratively, our archipelago is divided into 79 provinces, 117 cities, 1,601 municipalities and over 1,900 villages. And since these public institutions are run, nationally, by a President, a  Congress of two houses, and an independent judiciary and, locally, by governors, town and city mayors and village captains, plus their own legislative boards and councils — you can imagine how complex administering the unitary Philippine State could become.

I believe only federalism will answer our need to develop a national identity while preserving our cultural diversity. Only federalism will enable our local communities to decide for themselves how    their society should be ordered, for what purposes, and for whose benefit.

In a word, only federalism will ensure that the central government becomes the partner — and not the master — of local governments.

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments