The PPO program on Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, 7:30 p.m., Samsung Theater for Performing Arts, opens with Rimsky-Korsakov‘s Capriccio Espagnol, Op.34. After the Elgar concerto, the season concert will be capped by Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, Op. 61 in C Major.
THE cello soloists of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) have been mostly men, from Mstislav Rostropovich to Pierre Fournier, from Antonio Meneses to Chino Bolipata and Renato Lucas, among others.
In the second season concert marking the 40th year of the PPO, the Grammy award-winning American cellist Sara Sant’ Ambrogio is soloist in the emotionally challenging Elgar Concerto. The piece was interpreted by the then 15-year-old Damodar das Castillo and former PPO principal cellist Lucas.
Like our own Cecile Licad, Sant’ Ambrogio studied at Curtis with David Soyer of the Guarnerius Quartet, and later studied under Leonard Rose at Juilliard, where she won nearly all school competitions.
“Cecile Licad was one of the first musicians I met when I first came to New York City at age 15,” Sant’ Ambrogio recalled in an email interview with TheDiarist.ph. “She was already finished with Curtis and living in New York when I met her there with Peter Serkin. She has always been so kind to me, and an extraordinary musician. I still see her often because we lived in the same building for years in New York! Small world! She was really excited when I told her I was coming to the Philippines to perform.”
Indeed, Curtis has a special place in her heart. “Curtis was the perfect place for me at 16! I learned so much and was so very prepared when I went to Juilliard three years later to study with Leonard Rose. Three weeks after I arrived at Juilliard, I won the cello competition there and had my first Lincoln Center performance of the Schumann Cello Concerto.”
Then she was winning competitions one after the other, culminating in the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. “I think that competitions serve a purpose, especially if you do not have a mentor or possibilities of concerts, but it is incredibly subjective,” Sant’ Ambrogio said. “At the Tchaikovsky Competition the year I was competing there, it was a 22-member jury, and 21 were either from Russia or Eastern Europe. This was during the USSR period. I think it was amazing that as an American, I was able to win a medal, since it was so slanted against us at that time.”
Cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio: ‘Competitions serve a purpose….but are incredibly subjective’
The Moscow competition wasn’t really the turning point in her career. “I think it was actually quite a few years before the Tchaikovsky Competition. When I was 15 years old, Alexander Schneider heard me play and invited me to come to New York City from St. Louis, Missouri to perform at Carnegie Hall.”
In the audience at Carnegie Hall while she played a Bach Suite were Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Jamie Laredo, and many others. The next day she played for David Soyer of the Guarnerius Quartet, and he invited her to come to Curtis to study with him.
Sant’ Ambrogio believes audiences are the same everywhere, whether she is performing in Beijing or San Francisco. “One of the things that is so magical about being a musician is that no matter where you perform or what language the audience speaks, we all speak the language of music. We all share the same passions, loves, heartbreaks, and tragedies. Music somehow brings us together and heals our wounds. I find that after taking a journey with an audience, no matter where I am, I feel so hopeful for humanity and so much love for us all.”
In the beginning, her favorite cellists are what she describes as from the “old guard.” Her father, a principal cellist with the St. Louis Symphony, was her first teacher. “He introduced me to Gregor Piatagorsky, who is a hero of my father’s youth, and Rostropovich. I love how passionate they are, and how vulnerable they make themselves to the audience. I feel that when you walk off the stage, you must not have hidden any part of your soul. You must infuse the music with all your emotions.”
Like Licad, she also loves the challenge of chamber music, as a founding member of the Eroica Trio. “I love how alive you have to be when you are on stage with two other fine musicians, playing spontaneously and finding new depths in each piece of music. Every night I perform a piece, it is different. The mood of the audience, the acoustics of the hall, the emotions I am feeling all shape each performance. When you are on stage with just two other musicians that you respect and admire, the possibilities are endless, and that is often where the magic happens!”
She is excited about her PPO debut on Friday, November 15, 7:30 pm at the Samsung Theater for the Performing Arts, Circuit Makati. “I am incredibly excited about performing the Elgar Concerto with Maestro Grzegorz Nowak and the Philippines Philharmonic Orchestra! I know so many wonderful musicians from the Philippines, I know the orchestra is just going to be amazing! I have performed pretty much everywhere in Asia except for the Philippines. Hence I am so excited to see the people, hear the musicians and eat the food!”
Tickets available at https://premier.ticketworld.com.ph/shows/show.aspx or the CCP Box Office at tel. no. (+63 931) 033-0880 or email salesandpromotions@culturalcenter.gov.ph.)
