Carlos Ibay overwhelms, Lilac Caña fascinates

The incredible 26-year old blind pianist-singer Carlos "Chuckie" Ibay astounded, astonished, awed – in a word, overwhelmed – his listeners no end as he played and sang at the CCP Little Theater last Thursday.

Many pianists with normal vision strike wrong notes, but the unseeing Ibay struck the right notes all evening! It is challenging enough to sing and accompany one’s self on the piano. But for a blind performer to do so defies comprehension. Ibay did not play and sing cursorily; he interpreted each piece with sensitivity, indeed, with passion.

He accompanied himself – his tenor voice firm and strong – and soprano Lilac Caña in Giulio Cuccini’s Ave Maria. Here, the two harmonized exquisitely, each complementing the other. Throughout, Ibay and Caña shuttled from classic to popular music without effort, being thoroughly conversant with both idioms.

Ibay reigned supreme seated before the piano, playing Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9, No. 1, and Scherzo No. 3, Opus 131, hewing vibrantly and ardently to the required style. With a pure, clear, limpid voice, Caña rendered Debussy’s C’est L’Extase Langoureuse and Green, with Lourdes de Leon Gregorio as exemplary assisting artist. Caña held and sustained her top notes with wonderful control and demonstrated evenness of vocal timber in all registers. In the aria from Puccini’s La Boheme, Quando M’en, her voice soared magnificently. Her versatility shone further in Hugo Wolf’s art songs Auch Kleine Dinge and Ich Hab in Penna, and in the native air Wasay Wasay by Piux Cabajar, which interpretation stood out for its infectious charm, spirit and impeccable diction.

Ibay’s own remarkable versatility sparkled in the Spanish Maria Elena by Carillo, the Italian Un Amor Per Sempre by Marco Mariangeli and the Tagalog Ikaw Ang Ligaya Ko by Levi Celerio. Ibay, who speaks seven languages – Spanish, Italian, Russian and Japanese among them – regaled the audience with his mimicry of British, Italian, Tagalog and Visayan accents as he announced his songs, while listeners rollicked with glee at his jokes.

A fantastic, unbelievable pianistic feat, among many, was his colorful, richly creative arrangement/improvisation of songs from My Fair Lady: "The Rain in Spain," "I could Have Canced All Night," "Loverley" (here he even engaged in tap dancing!), "Get Me to the Church on Time," "I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face," "With a Little Bit of Luck". The audience went wild over the formidable fantasia.

Ibay and Caña went into a hitherto unrehearsed duet Only Love which clicked wonderfully again, with Caña play the piano beside Ibay. Another exquisite duet was the contra-puntal "You’re Just in Love"/"I Hear Singing" from the Broadway musical by Berlin. The duo concluded with David Foster’s The Prayer. Never had an audience been so entertained, enthralled, tantalized.

One went home with the overriding impression that Carlos "Chuckie" Ibay has no equal or peer anywhere in the world.

More incredible revelations

Last Sunday, I met Chuckie and his parents Roman and Carmen "Menchit" Ibay at a luncheon hosted by the daughters of Pabling and Loleng Arguelles Panlilio: Connie P. de los Angeles (the lady of the house), Vini P. Luciano and Corito P. Lim.

Chuckie’s parents are simple, unassuming, down-to-earth; so is their son. Mrs. Ibay told me that Chuckie was a six-month old baby when he was born, and the doctors had earlier advised abortion for fear the child would grow up retarded. The intense heat of the incubator destroyed the baby’s vision. Nonetheless, far from being retarded, the child grew up to be a genius instead!

Mrs. Ibay recounted that at two Chuckie ran his tiny fingers across the whole length of the piano keyboard, then started playing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" without any previous tutoring. At three, he was accompanying himself on the piano while singing children’s songs.

Was there anyone in the family who was a musician? Chuckie’s grandfather on his mother’s side was a violinist; his grandmother was a soprano.

At seven, Chuckie played Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat Major Op. 9 No. 2 after having listened to it once. Years later, a pianist had insisted that Chuckie transpose a Chopin piece to another key, and right there and then he did! (Very few concert pianists can do this.)

On March 31, Chuckie will give a recital at the Summer Art Museum in Washington, DC, Interpreting the Brahms Variations and Chopin’s Scherzos 1, 2, 3, 4. Tickets to his Melbourne concert were sold out, and he had an SRO audience besides. A pity he is better known abroad than he is in his own country.

At Sunday’s luncheon, Chuckie generously gave a full recital, opening it with Liszt’s paraphrase of the quartet from Rigoletto which he had not played since 2003. Yet the masterful interpretation shimmered a glowed. It was this same piece Chuckie played at the 80th birthday of Liz Smith who said after listening to it, "Ibay blew us away!"

He again rendered his formidable fantasia on "My Fair Lady", sang Maria from Bernstein’s Westside Story while accompanying himself. He honored whoever was celebrating his/her birthday with a "Happy Birthday" piece from Bach – the organ Prelude and Eugue transcribed – Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Mozart, Tschaikovsky’s Concerto No. 2, Strauss’ "Blue Danube", Mendelssohn, Schubert and De Falla’s "Fire Dance", interjecting into every piece a few bars of "Happy Birthday" while closely keeping to each composer’s style – and drawing from his own vast repertoire. The tour de force certainly blew us away!