Play me the classics, Maestro

We have to create audiences. We have to give our symphonic groups a chance to be heard. All we hear is pop," says Maestro Oscar Yatco, who is back in Manila to play the violin in Classics with the Maestro.

Yatco, conductor laureate of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, joins the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra as solo violinist. The concert will be conducted by Rodel Colmenar.

"We need a stage for other musical presentations other than the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The PhilamLife Theater could be one of them," adds Yatco. It is at the PhilamLife Theater on UN Ave. where Classics with the Maestro will be staged on Nov. 15, at 8 p.m. Yatco hopes that people will start to listen again to classical music and the classics.

Yatco says he is happy to have been invited by Colmenar, MPO musical director and principal conductor, to be the violin soloist in the concert "because I am going back to my original instrument."

He served for 10 years as resident conductor of the Manila Symphony Orchestra (which was later renamed the PPO) where he earned the designation as its first Filipino music director. In 1974, at the age of 42 and with a wife and three kids, he moved to Germany where he worked as a principal violinist at the National Theater Orchestra in Mannheim. He later rose to the position as its concert master.

It was in 1997 that the CCP conferred the title of conductor laureate on Oscar Yatco "in appreciation of the time and selfless effort in the development and professionalization of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra."

Although Yatco has lived in Germany since 1974, he never really left the classical music scene in Manila. "I have been coming back to Manila at least once a year since 1980," shares Yatco. This is why the Maestro feels there is much that has to be done to revitalize audiences and get them back into the music halls that play classical music.

"We also have to create audiences that want to listen to the classics," he adds.

Yatco hopes that with this upcoming concert of the MPO audiences will come and learn to appreciate the beauty of classical music. At the concert, the Maestro will play the violin concerto by Aram Khachaturian.

"An ideal orchestra is one that people will accept – but we have not found the proper recipe for this yet. We have to find out what the mainstream will like," says Yatco. And this is the kind of orchestra that Rodel Colmenar has been working on in creating the MPO.

Colmenar, who himself is an accomplished conductor, is the force behind the MPO. The MPO is an independent all-Filipino orchestra that is owned and managed by the artists themselves and supported by private companies.

The MPO sees its mission as being able to shed off the elitist image of the orchestra. Versatility remains the MPO’s strongest asset. It prides itself in its ability to shift from popular to classical music with the ease they showed in their anniversary concert Classic Meets Pop.

Today, the MPO continues its mission of spreading symphonic music while sticking to the orchestra’s tradition of excellence, thus giving the classics that everyday touch.

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For information on tickets, call Ticketworld at 891-5610 or the MPO office at 705-1728 and 722-7137. Tickets are also available at Goodwill Bookstores.