2009 NAMCYA Winners Guitar

The guitarists featured in this concert are all young since they were the winners of the 2009 NAMCYA (National Music Competition for Young Artists). My knowledge of the guitar repertoire is very limited so I was looking forward to expanding my horizons with this concert.

It’s a good thing that Carlo Antonio Juan, honorable mention at the competition, started the afternoon concert with Asturias by Isaac Albéniz, a piece familiar to me since it was originally written for the piano. It made me felt at ease although he looked quite nervous being the first soloist. But he eventually relaxed as he went on to play his other pieces which were Un Sueño en la Floresta by Agustín Barrios Mangoré, Mysterious Habitats by Dusan Bogdanovic, Iyo Kailan Pa Man by Angel Matias Peña and Kudyawit by Bayani de Leon. I’d like to note that Juan’s third piece started with a very interesting bass line that sounded modern and contemporary. And the rest of it was just sublime. It was the first time I’ve ever heard anything by Bogdanovic and it was hauntingly beautiful.

Ramoncito Carpio, who got the second prize, was the next to perform his set and in he is more of an extrovert compared to the more laid back Juan. The three pieces he played were Tarantella by Johann Kaspar Mertz, Fantasy Variations by Jose Valdez which was based on the Philippine Folksong “Sarung Banggi” and Koyunbaba by Carlo Domeniconi. He played them with the confidence of a showman and by the time he finished the Presto of the Koyunbaba, the audience was enthusiastic in their applause. The two soloists’ performances made up the first part of the concert. I admit that it wasn’t easy for me to sit and watch guitar solos. Lack of familiarity with the gutar repertoire and not really knowing what to expect proved to be my handicap. But I’m glad to have sat it out since I got to listen to Bogdanovic whose music still resonates in my mind.

The second part of the concert was when the familiar music came to me. The Manila Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Arturo Molina started it with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol. It was a totally different change of pace from the guitar solos since this piece has a brilliant and lush orchestration with delightful percussions especially at the end. There were nice solos played the both the concertmaster and the principal clarinet. The orchestra played with this piece with the flair needed and I was very much satisfied.

The finale of the concert was reserved for the first prize winner Franco Raymundo Maigue. And he performed the very popular Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo. For this piece, the orchestra was conducted by Michael Dadap. The guitarist was technically proficient especially with his cadenzas but I felt that he lacked the emotional pull needed for this piece especially with the Adagio of the second movement. I guess this is where the lack of life experience comes in. But then, I had to remind myself that Maigue, along with Juan and Carpio aren’t seasoned professional performers.

As I’ve said, these three guitarists are still young. There were times when they took their bows that they looked delighted and a bit perplexed that people were applauding them and that these people actually paid their tickets to watch them. But I think that given time and more experience, these three will be able to connect more with their audience aside from impressing them with their impeccable technique.

NAMCYA Honorable Mention Carlo Antonio Juan

The Jones & Maruri

I was a bit unsure going to this concert. First of all, I only found out about this less than week before the actual performance date. And I also don’t know much about guitar and cello duos especially their repertoire.

Thankfully, a quick search of the web led me to some information regarding the couple of musicians set to perform. I found out that the Jones & Maruri duo is composed of British cellist Michael Jones and Spanish guitarist Agustin Maruri. And they also have a handful of videos over at YouTube so I was able to have an idea of their sound.

The concert held at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium at the RCBC Plaza was organized by the Embassy of Spain in Manila in commemoration of Spain assuming the presidency of the European Union. So it was no surprise that the audience was teeming with members of the diplomatic corps.

So the duo started the concert with a piece called Sonata En Sol composed by composer Benedetto Marcello. Honestly, I don’t know anything about Marcello except that he lived during the Baroque era as I gathered from the programme given before the concert. I am not a big fan of Baroque music but nonetheless, I listened attentively since this was the first time for me to hear a live performance of a cello and guitar duo. As I guessed, the cello played the main themes and melodies while the guitar served as the accompaniment. But there were interesting moments in the sonata especially with the fugue during the second movement.

The second piece that the duo played was Siete Canciones Populares Españolas by Federico Moreno Torroba. As the title simply says, the piece is made up of seven popular songs derived from zarzuelas. Despite only hearing the songs for the first time, I managed to recognize a few familiar rhythms like the Habanera and the Malagueña. And this time, the guitar had the opportunity to play passages of the main theme while the cello accompanied in pizzicato. This definitely kept the audience very entertained as some applauded in between the songs.

Don Quijote y Dulcinea by Erik Marchelie was the next piece and this had a lot of texture in it despite only having two instruments. And this piece was composed specifically for the Jones and Maruri duo. This piece ended the first part of the concert.

For the second part of the concert, the duo played a piece composed for them by the former Ambassador of Spain in the Philippines, Delfín Colomé. The piece is called Dels Ocells. I really wish that I could really say much about this piece but my memory is a bit hazy and I can’t recall if the bits and pieces of music that I remember were from this piece or from the Don Quijote which they performed earlier. For example, I can’t remember which of the two featured a handful of portamenti passages by the cello. But despite my mix up, there were interesting moments in one of these two recent works of music. I find it interesting when the cello plucked along with the guitar producing a thicker sound.

After this unfamiliar piece, they went back to perform a crowd pleasing piece called Suite Popular by Manuel de Falla. Just like the seven songs, this suite is composed of six short pieces that evoked the tunes from different regions of Spain. This piece is reminiscent of the Spanish Suite by Isaac Albéniz. I really liked the final movement called Polo since it clearly had an Andalusian flavor to it. And that was when I realized that this Suite was also performed by another duo (Duo Rivera) in a concert months before. No wonder the music sounded familiar to me.

For an encore, they did Aranjuez ma Pensée by Joaquin Rodrigo which is basically the Adagio from the popular Concierto de Aranjuez. It was a delight to finally see Maruri get the spotlight since this is originally a guitar piece and he was able to display his virtuosic guitar playing with Jones’ cello mostly at rest.

The audience was then treated by a signing at the lobby after the concert. They only had three of their CD’s available for sale and I was quite disappointed not to see the Don Quijote y Dulcinea among them since that was the one that I was hoping to get.

Cellist Michael Jones

Guitarist Agustin Maruri

It was indeed an enjoyable experience despite some hesitation from me before going and then realizing that I was under dressed for the event. I just hope that I'll be better prepared and properly dressed at the next concert.