Benvenuti with the MSO at St. Joseph Church in Las Pinas, known for its bamboo organ (Photo courtesy of Alessio Benvenuti)
What happens when a brilliant Italian composer and multi-instrumentalist who grew up in Tuscany, the picturesque Italian region, falls in love with a Filipina from a virtually unknown seaside town called Lazi in Siquijor?
A night of Filipino and Italian ties at Joel’s Place: seated, from left; MSO president Maan Hontiveros, MSO executive director and associate conductor Jeffrey Solares, MSO concertmaster Alessio Benvenuti, viola player Sara Gonzales; standing, from left: Joel’s Place hotel-restaurant-cafe/catering sales manager Camille Tantoco, Philippine Italian Association officers Tats Rejante-Manahan, Silvana Ancellotti-Diaz and Joanna Altomonte Abrera. (Photo by Totel V. de Jesus)
The result is an enchanting composition, The Winds of Siquijor. It was written in 2017 by Italian composer Alessio Benvenuti, now concertmaster of Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO), after he spent more than a year, —some of the best days of his life, he said—in the island province.
Alessio and Analyn Benvenuti in Tuscany
He met a woman named Analyn in a far-flung barrio, married her, lived in this obscure barangay—a forest, he would call it—and in time, became reunited with his music in this pristine isolation.
A music prodigy who grew up in a family of musicians, Benvenuti started playing the piano when he was three. At six, in his first public performance, he interpreted on the piano the pieces of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. At eight, on the organ he performed Toccata and Fugue by Bach. He learned playing the violin and for his first performance, at age 12, he played 24 Caprices, considered one of the most difficult pieces for solo violin by Niccolò Paganini.
After being privately mentored by veteran musicians and studying in the best traditional music schools in Italy, he went to Juilliard School of Music and Drama in New York. In 2004, he obtained his Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Performances.
He continued his studies at the Royal College of Music in London, and worked “as an assistant in recording studio, composition of film music, arrangement and musical adaptation for soundtracks and television.”
He’s been producing concerts, serving as concertmaster and performing as soloist for symphony orchestras all over the world. Since 1996, he has performed in 2,000 concerts that brought him to the US, South America, Central America, Tunisia, Europe and the Philippines.
Before turning 30, or a little more than a decade ago before he settled down in the Philippines, Benvenuti was recognized by then Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, by ministerial decree, as Artist of High National and International Value.
Benvenuti’s father, Roberto, worked as videographer for a news channel in Italy.
“My father traveled a lot. In 2007 to 2008, he traveled to Southeast Asia and he’s done a lot of documentary videos of the Philippines. Before he passed away in 2012, he told me Siquijor was like a paradise. He said something like, ‘it’s the most beautiful and peaceful place in the world’. I got curious. The same year he died, I was also dealing with divorce from my first wife. It was a difficult year,” he told TheDiarist.ph.
We were at Joel’s Place, a lovely cozy grocerant (hybrid business concept that combines a grocery store with a restaurant), at Rockwell Proscenium one rainy afternoon last week.
“My teacher called this phase the dark period of a musician. For some reasons I wanted to take my break. It’s the time when you need to find yourself again,” he added. The name Siquijor didn’t leave him.
“Then I met this lovely Filipina named Analyn and she became my girlfriend. For me, it’s like destiny, a message from the heaven because she’s from Siquijor,” he recalled, smiling.
They got married in 2017 and settled in the seaside town of Lazi for a longer time, like an extended honeymoon.
‘I live in the middle of a forest because my wife’s family lives in a barangay there….Our lives are so simple’
“I lived in the middle of a forest because my wife’s family lives in a barangay there, though her father is a fisherman. Our lives are so simple. And I am simple too. I slept on the bamboo floor for one year,” he said.
A concertmaster who plays the violin and piano like they were extensions of his arm, Benvenuti, for six months, didn’t play any musical instrument. His savings took care of the daily needs. He found healing and just lived a contented life in the place he’s been yearning for.
“My wife helped me buy a fishing rod and taught me how to use the tie and hook the bait and all that. I tried fishing but for six months, I didn’t catch anything, believe it or not, not a single fish.”
Like many Europeans, he loved the tropical weather, waking up to the sight of coconut trees, swimming in the town’s waterfalls and rivers, walking on the beach, and communing with local folk, who he said were all nice to him.
All those months, he didn’t touch any musical instrument.
“For some reason, I wanted to take a break from music. I didn’t really plan what’s going to happen in my music career. It’s probably to find yourself again.
“But in those six months, I felt reborn, I just listened to the sound of the sea, the waves. The same when I am in the forest, I listened to the birds, the sound of leaves swaying with the wind, I absorbed everything. I just wanted to be with myself. So, I guess, I changed my style of making music. From where I came from, musicians wanted to sound like this and like that. I wanted to sound ‘me’.”
The concertmaster relaxing with family (Photo courtesy of Alessio Benvenuti)
A son of a top government official, who is a friend of his wife’s family, learned about Benvenuti and who he is in Italy.
“He told my wife, ‘your husband is a famous classical musician in Italy, why is he not playing any musical instrument?’ After that, a few days later, he showed up in our doorstep and gave me a violin, one of those cheap violins, I heard, worth P1,500,” he said with a chuckle. “But I was very grateful.”
After six months of trying to fish and not laying his hands on any musical instrument, he started playing the violin at home, under the coconut trees
So, after six months of trying to fish and not laying his hands on any musical instrument, he started playing the violin at home, under the coconut trees, on the beach, even in karaoke bars. He has also made friends with some Italians who frequent or have settled in Siquijor.
“If you listen to one of my impromptu concerts uploaded on You Tube by those who saw me randomly playing in such places, you may not believe I was using that kind of violin. But you know, I changed the strings. I ordered online and luckily found the ones I was looking for and replaced the strings,” he said.
“Then my wife gave birth to our firstborn, Leonardo, and I knew, one of these days, I had to find work,” he added.
Call it fate but after playing violin in “a karaoke place,” a fellow customer, who introduced himself as a Filipino priest from Cebu, approached him. They talked and learned about his sterling resume.
“He offered me a teaching job in Cebu and so I got a job,” he recalled.
Soon, he was teaching at Tabor Hill College in Barangay Talamban in Cebu City and later at San Carlos University.
Getting a regular income, checked. But what about in imperial Manila, we ask him, where there’s a bigger community that appreciates classical music. He could find a more rewarding career there.
“Several years ago, I sent an email to the Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO), asking if they needed someone like me. But at the time, there was no vacancy,” he said.
In time, word got around.
Jeffrey Solares, the executive director of the MSO Foundation Inc. and associate conductor, learned about the talked-about Italian violinist-pianist-composer who was teaching and conducting an orchestra in Cebu.
Fortuitously there was vacancy for concertmaster. In 2024 Benvenuti joined the MSO as concertmaster. He was also offered to teach at MSO Academy.
“I am now based in Makati City with my family,” Benvenuti said.
He and his wife now have two lovely children, Leonardo and Miguel Angelo.
“Everywhere I go, they come with me. They love watching the concerts, always on the first rows,” he said.
They also travel to Tuscany. “I still have my younger sister there, lots of friends and relatives.”
We asked him if he’s familiar with the romance movie, Under The Tuscan Sun, which was shot in Cortona, an Etruscan hilltop town in Tuscany.
“Oh, yes, I know that town. It is near Torrita di Siena , the village where I grew up in and still live when I’m in Italy. You know the movie Gladiator, (starring Russell Crowe) and The English Patient (starring Ralph Fiennes)? Some of the scenes in those films were shot close to Torrita.”
We said goodbye, took selfies, and wished the, ugh, the moderately strong winds this rainy day would stop.
We asked him where to find some samples of his works. “My music is everywhere, in You Tube, Soundcloud, other sites. Just type my name.”
Then again, it was a unique experience to hear him live.
Alessio Benvenuti and Sara Gonzales in impromptu performance at Joel’s Place at Rockwell Proscenium (Photo by Totel V. de Jesus)
Earlier, at a cordoned corner at Joel’s Place, to the delight of customers, he and Filipina viola player, Sara Gonzales, performed three instrumental pieces for violin; the Visayan famous ballad, Gregorio Responso Labja’s Usahay, Duet for One Violin (Duo Merveille) by Niccolo Paganini, and the haunting classic Hating Gabi by National Artist for Music Antonio Molina.
Benvenuti was featured artist in the Filipino-Italian Chamber Music Concert last October 16 at the Asia Pacific College Auditorium in Magallanes, Makati City. Presented by the Philippine Italian Association and MSO, with Joel’s Place and 98.7 DZFE-FM The Master’s Touch as sponsors, Benvenuti and Gonzales was joined by Arnold Josue (cello), Lawrence Bass (bass) and Mariel Ilusorio (piano).
Manila Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Alessio Benvenuti (second from left) takes a bow after a successful Filipino-Italian Chamber Music Concert on Oct. 16 at the Asia Pacific College Auditorium in Makati City. He is joined in onstage by, from left, pianist Mariel Ilusorio, violinist Alfonso Encina, viola player Sara Gonzales, cellist Arnold Josue, bass player Lawrence Palad and MSO executive director and associate conductor Jeffrey Solares. Photo by Totel V. de Jesus
They performed Italian and Filipino masterpieces by Antonio Vivaldi, Tomaso Albinoni, Antonio Molina, Antonino Buenaventura, Nicanor Abelardo (Cavatina), Mike Velarde (Dahil Sa ‘Yo), Giuseppe Tartini (Sonata in G Minor Didone Abbandonata), Ennio Moricone’s films scores from Cinema Paradiso and La Califfa, Gioachino Rossini (Sonata No. 1 for Strings in G Major), among others.
MSO at curtain call at Aliw Theater (Photo courtesy of Alessio Benvenuti)
For those who missed this concert, the MSO is celebrating its 99th year and there are performances until the end of the year.
The Philippine Italian Association, on its 63rd year, continues to foster unity between Filipino and Italian cultures through Italian language instruction, translation services and social security, welfare assistance provided via the Patronato Acli.
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