(The seventh season of Classics in Sunshine 2026 opens March 7, 2026, at Sunshine Place, 57 Jupiter St., Makati, with ‘Two Voices, One Heart’ featuring soprano Rachelle Gerodias and baritone Byeongin Park. Contact 0917 709 2255)
In the silence before the first note, the piano will have to speak as much as the singer. This is how concert artist and educator Mariel Ilusorio begins Dichterliebe by Robert Schumann. She will set the emotional landscape of Heinrich Heine’s poetry before a word is sung. The cycle is demanding for pianists because not only of the need for virtuoso display but also the need for psychological precision. The piano introduces nearly every song, often with harmonies that hover between keys, requiring sensitive pedaling and voicing so the texture remains transparent under the voice. Just as crucial are the postludes, where the singer falls silent and the piano alone must resolve the emotional tension.
Rachelle Gerodias and Byeongin Park
Two Voices, One Heart, featuring soprano Rachelle Gerodias and baritone Byeongin Park launches the seventh season of Classics in Sunshine 2026.
During the pandemic, Ilusurio initiated this series featuring Western and Filipino repertoire. Aside from catering to the mature captive audience at Sunshine Place, Jupiter St., in Makati, she will invite students from the Pamantasang ng Lungsod ng Maynila, children from orphanages, and even hard-of-hearing listeners to experience music in ways that go beyond hearing. In a previous concert, a deaf attendee was moved to tears by the vibrations of the piano, a reminder that music can resonate in the body and the mind.
Each concert in the series is carefully structured to offer variety—duos and trios with solo piano inserted to highlight individual voices, and a quintet closing the season.
This year, five concerts will feature different themes and instruments, giving audiences the chance to explore the full range of music, from the technical demands of German lieder or art songs to the colors of Filipino and Western chamber works.
Singers and soloists
On March 7, Gerodias and Byeongin Park, husband and wife and longtime musical partners, will bring a natural intimacy to Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe and other love songs. The program leans into romance, a post-Valentine meditation in German, with texts mostly by the poet Heinrich Heine, whose 19th-century verses inspired some of Schumann’s most celebrated lieder.
A composer and virtuoso pianist, Schumann wrote these cycles to fuse poetry and piano into equal partnership. Piano introductions set the mood, sometimes carrying the music alone at the close of a song. The Dichterliebe cycle unfolds across 16 pieces, a narrative of longing and reflection. Ilusurio’s role is more than accompaniment; the piano shapes the emotional arc alongside the singers, highlighting Schumann’s dual gifts as composer and poet.
With English translations, the songs themselves will become intimate and expressive, the kind that reveal subtleties with each hearing. For a program devoted to love, the combination of Gerodias, Park, and Ilusorio promises a nuanced exploration rather than overt sentimentality.
Flutist Joshua Emmanuel D. Cerafica
On May 2, Flute for the Gods spotlights the flutist Joshua Cerafica, a recent graduate of the University of Santo Tomas. Ilusorio accompanied him at the National Music Competitions for Young Artists (NAMCYA), where he was finalist, demonstrating the focus and discipline of a committed young musician.
They will open with Carl Reinecke’s Flute Sonata, a work inspired by the story of Ondine, a water spirit who lures a human into her world, blending lyricism with technical clarity. Reinecke, a 19th-century German composer and pianist, was known for his elegant, Romantic chamber works and for nurturing generations of musicians as a conductor in Leipzig.
The program then shifts to tangos by Astor Piazzolla, the Argentine composer who transformed traditional tango into a sophisticated, rhythmically complex genre. The combination of sonata and tango gives the recital variety while placing the flute in a rare solo spotlight, highlighting Serafica’s tone, phrasing, and precision.
Breaking from the chamber music series, the third concert on July 25 is a solo piano recital by Abelardo Galang II, Ilusorio’s husband. A graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Music, Galang won the Grand Prix at the 1992 Philippine Piano Competition, earning a scholarship to Musashino Academia Musicae in Tokyo for his first master’s degree. He completed a second master’s at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin, and earned a doctorate in music with honors at the Technische Universität Berlin.
Galang performs widely in solo and chamber settings across Europe and Asia and recorded a three-CD set of Giovanni Benedetto Platti’s complete piano sonatas. He taught at the Berlin Piano School, and now serves as director of Music Performance and chairman of the Piano Department at Philippine Women’s University, while also lecturing at the University of the Philippines College of Music.
Galang curated the program himself. It opens with sonatas by Platti, an 18th-century Italian Baroque composer whose works are little known outside specialist circles. The recital will also include music by Schumann and a selection of Filipino composers, offering a mix of European tradition and local works. Ilusorio steps back from performing to host the evening, letting Galang take full focus.
Sara Gonzales, violin and viola
Resonating with Pinoys
The September 5 program, titled Unraveling Ravel, features Sarah Gonzales, assistant concertmaster of the Manila Symphony Orchestra, on the violin and viola. Ilusurio first performed with Gonzales last year, and their renewed collaboration explores the music of Maurice Ravel, the French composer known for his elegant, finely detailed chamber works.
The centerpiece is Ravel’s Violin Sonata, a compact but demanding piece full of subtle harmonies. Gonzales will also perform Tzigane, arranged for viola, a virtuosic showpiece inspired by Hungarian gypsy violin music. The piece includes rapid passages, wide leaps, and intricate rhythms, requiring both technical precision and expressive freedom. On the violin, the music is bright and agile; on the viola, the same notes take on a darker, richer tone, revealing how size and tuning affect the instrument’s character.
Even first-time listeners can hear the contrast, noticing how the violin’s clarity differs from the viola’s warmth, and follows the interplay between melody and accompaniment. The program offers an accessible lesson in tone, color, and musical storytelling, while showcasing Ravel’s virtuosic style.
The series concludes on Sunday, November 8, with a program highlighting Quintessential: Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Quintet, a cornerstone of late Romantic chamber music. The Czech composer is known for his expressive melodies, rich harmonies, and lyrical, often sentimental style, which Ilusorio notes, resonates with the Filipino sensibility. The quintet is the centerpiece, complemented by additional works by Dvořák that showcase his blend of nationalism and romanticism.
Though not as widely performed as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, or Beethoven, Dvořák’s chamber music offers warmth, lyricism, and emotional depth. The program invites audiences to experience his melodic elegance and the intricate interplay between piano and strings that makes the piano quintet a staple of the repertoire.
Ilusorio designs the series to provide variety, avoiding programs that are overly familiar while maintaining balance. Some concerts include Filipino music, often pieces rarely performed, giving audiences constant exposure to challenging repertoire. Each program features a different theme or instrument, encouraging listeners to engage actively with the music. For seniors and longtime concertgoers alike, she says this approach keeps both mind and spirit growing, treating music as a language to be learned anew with each performance.
The couple Abelardo Galang and Mariel Ilusorio do a four-hand performance.
Newlywed
The series also carries a personal resonance. Ilusorio and Abelardo Galang II, 57, who have known each other for over two decades, married recently. They first met in Berlin in 2001, when Ilusorio performed the Dvořák Piano Quintet—the same piece featured in the series’ final concert— in a concert attended by the Philippine ambassador and Filipino music scholars, Galang among them. They drew closer in 2003 while living in Germany though in different states. Ilusorio moved to South Africa for work, while Galang stayed behind in Berlin.
They reconnected in 2020, and by 2021 Galang began traveling to the Philippines regularly for his teaching positions, including a full-time role at Philippine Women’s University. The couple finally reunited permanently when he returned for good at the end of 2024.
Ilusorio notes how Galang’s superb playing has been shaped by his German training. His style is cerebral and analytical, reflecting the experience of having studied music where it was originally created, from Bach and Beethoven to Mozart. She says that while technical skill is universal, cultural immersion adds nuance. Just as how a European might interpret Filipino music differently, Galang’s time in Europe allowed him to absorb the spirit of Western works in a way that complemented her approach.
This shared understanding of both music and culture informs their collaborations in performing, whether European classics or Filipino repertoire.
The couple has also performed four-hand piano music together, including one concert in the series last year, when Galang was Ilusorio’s fiancé. She notes that playing together as a couple brings a particular closeness and comfort. On stage, they can move freely and interact physically without hesitation, a sense of ease that can be challenging to achieve with other collaborators. This intimacy translates into their music, adding a subtle layer of connection palpable to audiences.
After their wedding last January, Ilusorio has been settling into a new rhythm with Galang, balancing their shared musical projects with family life. Their household includes her 20-year-old daughter, Anita, from a previous relationship in South Africa. She is adjusting to married life while continuing her career, reflecting on how collaboration with Galang allows them to accomplish more together while still growing individually.
For the couple, this new chapter is about developing as musicians, as individuals, and as a family.
(Concerts are held at Sunshine Place, 56 Jupiter St., Makati. Contact 0917 709 2255)
