The Orchestra of the Filipino Youth (OCY) celebrated the environment and ecological harmony in its concert at the Rockwell Proscenium Theatre, Makati City, last Sunday, August 16. The Music for A Regenerative Future featured nature-inspired master works and sounded a clarion call for ecological protection.
The universality of this theme was eloquently expressed in the intelligently chosen works from both West and Asia, notably Japan and the Philippines.
The audience came in droves, led by Federico “Piki” Lopez and Irene Marcos-Araneta. Piki is the president of Ang Misyon, Inc., an organization that created the OCY to train young Filipino musicians. Irene is a staunch supporter of the musical arts.
The Orchestra of the Filipino Youth with conductor Gerard Salonga
After a sterling performance of National Artist for Music Antonino Buenaventura’s tone poem By the Hillside, composed in 1941, conductor and musical director Gerard Salonga introduced the program. He expressed the hope that the concert would help raise consciousness for protecting the environment for the next generation.
He expressed adulation for composer Buenaventura, whose arrangement for the National Anthem that was played at the opening of the program he considered the best symphonic arrangement.
He acknowledged the presence of the late Maestro Buenaventura’s daughter, Lulu Buenaventura-Salipsip, and introduced the rest of the program: Takashi Yoshimatsu, And Birds Are Still; George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue; and Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 in F major, known as Pastoral Symphony. He justified the inclusion of Gershwin’s work as it represented a period, the 1920s, when the US enjoyed the benefits of industrialization, and stressed the point that economic development can go side by side with environmental protection and conservation.
As opener, conductor Gerard Salonga brought out the understated elegance of Maestro Buenaventura’s work inspired by the bucolic beauty of the hilly contours of Baguio City, nestled in the Cordilleras. The OCY played handsomely its calm and pastoral notes, broken only by an agitation that resolved in a peaceful resolution. Admirable was the use of the chromatic counterpoint near the end. (At the time he composed it in 1941, the venerable maestro was the commissioned music director and conductor of the Philippine Military Band.)
Conductor Gerard acknowledged the clarinet, cello, and English horn players at the end for the splendid solo parts they played.
First time heard on Manila’s concert stage, Yoshimatsu’s brief work, And The Birds Are Still, played only by the string section, tugged at the heart of attentive listeners. Brief as it was, the music was played with gusto, evoking a velvety texture, in an absorbing lyrical and pensive mood, expressed in both tonal as well as modal scales.
Daniel (center) with Piki Lopez (leftmost) and wife Monina, Daniel’s parents Katherine and Jehremiah, and Prof. Anthony Say
The concert’s highlight was the performance of pianist Daniel Jehremiah Fernandez Asis as soloist in George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The opening passage—that upward cadenza of some sort for the clarinet—was brilliantly played by the solo clarinet. It engaged the full the attention of the listeners. The piece’s bouncy jazz rhythm all the more caught the attention of the audience, who were attentive to the hilt.
Daniel with Prof. Anthony Say, his piano teacher
The 16-year-old Daniel, who is in Grade 10 at the Philippine Science High School, stunned the audience with his dazzling virtuosity. Despite his non-athletic build, he showed a powerful command of the keyboard and great rhythmic verve.
Daniel with Irene Marcos Araneta
He played with agility, with steely charm that displayed jazzy eloquence, what with those rapid chords, leaping left hand, and syncopated melodies for the right hand, and those glittering arpeggios.
Daniel played with agility, with steely charm that displayed jazzy eloquence, with those rapid chords, leaping left hand, and syncopated melodies for the right hand
When his solo part came, the cadenza, he showed even more virtuosity, in those heavy jazzy accents, rapid modulations, and thunderous octaves.
As the last note faded out, shouts of “Bravo” and thunderous applause greeted him. He came back and played Nikolai Kapustin’s Pastorale, delivered in a jazz idiom. He followed this with an arrangement of Earl Wild’s Embraceable You in the same style.
Indeed, the saying “The fruit does not fall far from the tree” is best illustrated here. Daniel’s mother, Katherine Fernandez Asis, is an accomplished pianist who graduated from the Philippine High school for the Arts and the University of the Philippines College of Music with Bachelor’s degree in piano performance, both at the top of her class, and finished her graduate studies at Towson University in Maryland.
Beethoven’s Pastorale symphony concluded the concert. Here the OFY surged through the five-movement, well-cherished symphonic work of Beethoven. The work is a piece about nature and country life that includes sound effects from mother nature, such as bird calls, thunderstorms, and flowing brooks.
The first and second movements had that traditional pause, but the third up to the fifth movements were played without a break.
Conductor Gerard Salonga acknowledges applause.
Here the musicians played with such stylish confidence, with some instruments mimicking nature sounds with astounding vividness. Collaboration among the musicians was tight. So was it between the orchestra and conductor Salonga. Listening was a joy, considering the fact that the musicians are quite young! They played with such dynamism, inspired by the dynamic leadership of their conductor and music director, who stood tall on the podium, to convey the essence of Beethoven’s symphonic work.
Daniel and conductor Salonga acknowledge audience applause.
Taken all together, the music urged us to love and conserve nature.
Bravo, Daniel, and congratulations, Maestro Salonga and OCY!
