The President's Committee on Culture of the Far Eastern University is celebrating its 20th Anniversary. And in line with this milestone, they present their 2010-2011 Film and Performing Arts Series which has the theme: Focusing on the Youth. And they did focus on the youth with a performance entitled a Tribute to Lucio San Pedro, National Artist for Music which featured the Angono Chamber Orchestra conducted by Agripino Diestro. The orchestra which was actually a string orchestra is made up of kids with ages ranging from 11-21 years old and they prepared an all Filipino programme for their performance at the FEU Auditorium.
Before the performance started, there was a memorandum of agreement signed by FEU President Lydia Echauz with the Friends for Cultural Concerns of the Philippines (FCCP) through President Beth Cristobal for the financial support of the top full scholar from each of FEU's 5 cultural groups for SY 2010-2011.
The performance was billed as a tribute to San Pedro but there were other Filipino composers whose works were played by the young orchestra like Francisco Buencamino, Ernani Cuenco, Constancio de Guzman, George Canseco. The pieces played were mostly short, folk tunes that aren't that challenging to play. But I really appreciated them since Diestro took to the microphone and gave not just a brief background on the pieces but also gave bits of information about the orchestra, the instruments, orchestration, concert decorum, and music in general. The audience were mostly composed of students and a few guests from outside the university and from the looks of it, they weren't regular concert goers so the brief spiels were of great help for them to understand how classical music concerts work.
Things got interesting when principal cellist Giuseppe Andre V. Diestro became the featured soloist for the orchestra's performance of San Pedro's Romance for Cello and Piano. Since the orchestra was only composed of strings, this piece was transcribed which was also the case for almost all of the pieces that were played. The numbers featuring soprano Ma. Cristina Pia M. Orca proved to be one of the highlights of the show. She sung two popular San Pedro works: Ave Maria and Sa Ugoy ng Duyan from Suite Pastorale.
And for their last piece, they played the Jubilate March and they struggled a bit in the middle but come on, they're just kids! After, Diestro then told the audience about the nature of encores in a concert. The audience picked it up quickly and applauded loudly demanding that the orchestra play some more. And they did play a portion of the Brandenburg Concerto by Bach and the famous paso doble España Cañí by Narro.
Overall, the performance was simple and sweet, just appropriate for the kids that played them. It was nice hearing those folk tunes that I've learned back then when I was still a kid.
Before the performance started, there was a memorandum of agreement signed by FEU President Lydia Echauz with the Friends for Cultural Concerns of the Philippines (FCCP) through President Beth Cristobal for the financial support of the top full scholar from each of FEU's 5 cultural groups for SY 2010-2011.
The performance was billed as a tribute to San Pedro but there were other Filipino composers whose works were played by the young orchestra like Francisco Buencamino, Ernani Cuenco, Constancio de Guzman, George Canseco. The pieces played were mostly short, folk tunes that aren't that challenging to play. But I really appreciated them since Diestro took to the microphone and gave not just a brief background on the pieces but also gave bits of information about the orchestra, the instruments, orchestration, concert decorum, and music in general. The audience were mostly composed of students and a few guests from outside the university and from the looks of it, they weren't regular concert goers so the brief spiels were of great help for them to understand how classical music concerts work.
Things got interesting when principal cellist Giuseppe Andre V. Diestro became the featured soloist for the orchestra's performance of San Pedro's Romance for Cello and Piano. Since the orchestra was only composed of strings, this piece was transcribed which was also the case for almost all of the pieces that were played. The numbers featuring soprano Ma. Cristina Pia M. Orca proved to be one of the highlights of the show. She sung two popular San Pedro works: Ave Maria and Sa Ugoy ng Duyan from Suite Pastorale.
And for their last piece, they played the Jubilate March and they struggled a bit in the middle but come on, they're just kids! After, Diestro then told the audience about the nature of encores in a concert. The audience picked it up quickly and applauded loudly demanding that the orchestra play some more. And they did play a portion of the Brandenburg Concerto by Bach and the famous paso doble España Cañí by Narro.
Overall, the performance was simple and sweet, just appropriate for the kids that played them. It was nice hearing those folk tunes that I've learned back then when I was still a kid.
The Angono Chamber Orchestra
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