Watch out for Basista’s 1st Orchestra Festival!
BASISTA—Prepare for a trip to this quiet town on the day it will be filled with music as it lays claim to being the Orchestra Capital of Pangasinan.
The town will stage its first orchestra festival next month on April 27!
Mayor Jocelyn Perez, who is barely one month in her post as the town’s chief executive last March 15 following the ouster of her predecessor over a citizenship issue, told The PUNCH that at least seven popular orchestras from this town will participate.
MAYOR PEREZ
“Yes, this will be the biggest event ever to be held here with seven home-grown orchestras simultaneously playing along the widened national roads on April 27,” Perez said. “It’s going to be really exciting,” she added.
She said it will be a moment to remember in the town’s history where townsfolk and their guests will also enjoy a night of good live music, bonding with families and friends through a street party until the wee hours of the morning.
“It’s about time we claim the title as the Orchestra Capital of Pangasinan since our town is the only one that is home to at least nine orchestras actively engaged in the music industry, playing during fiestas and other big events not only in Pangasinan but elsewhere in the country,” the mayor pointed out.
The mayor said the orchestras agreed to play for the festival with huge discounts in their fees for the benefit of their townmates.
At the welcome arc of the town connecting Bayambang town and San Carlos City, a marker reads: Welcome to Basista, where fine music begins.” At the back of the same marker bids motorists “Where fine music ends.”
Musicians and artists that compose the orchestras, either as singers/crooners, dancers, conductors, or players of various musical instruments, are mostly relatives from the same family trees. After all, their musical and entertainment livelihood was started by their grandparents and continued by their succeeding generations up to this day,” Ms. Perez said.
“It has become a truly “family affair,” she gushed!
Basista is a fourth class municipality with a population of 30,385 people based on the 2010 census. It used to be part of San Carlos City.
The town has 13 barangays and in a small barangay of Dumpay alone, seven orchestras can already be found there.
Each orchestra that plays in fiestas engages about 40 men and women so having several orchestras in their town is a big boon to the different families’ livelihood.
The reputation of the Basista orchestras as truly entertaining began to spread in the early 70s and continues to make the rounds to this day, the visibly proud mayor said.
A research will soon be undertaken by the town to establish how the family orchestras started. (Tita Roces)
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
