Street children a hit/ Quach, Coke at Bel-Air

It is becoming increasingly fashionable to combine pop and classic music at concerts. Obviously, the mix widens audience appeal, and brings lovers of both idioms to performances. This probably explains the many guests who filled the Makati Shangri-La Hotel Rizal ballroom last week for the dinner concert whose beneficiary, the Tuloy Foundation, augmented attendance.

A word about the Foundation. Headed by Fr. Rocky Evangelista, SDB, it provides food, shelter and education to poor, abandoned children, with the help of generous patrons.

According to Sally G. Chua Chiaco, a cancer survivor and now a permanent Tuloy patron, the Village consists of 4.5 hectares with ten three-storey dormitory buildings, a school and office building, workshops, a huge gym, 14 basketball goals a soccer field, two basketball courts and a sprawling garden. All these were not built overnight. In 2001 there were only three homes, the school and office. Now the Village is a haven for 200 street children, 9 to 21 years old. On weekdays, 400 more from marginalized families join the regular residents for study, tuition-free.

Prior to the concert, I met the young, dynamic Jose Perez III, the school principal. Tenor George Yang, a concert participant and a Tuloy sponsor, recounted that he was highly impressed with the Tuloy Village on his first visit. The school rooms were spotless, the grounds neatly trimmed; the children, respectful and exceedingly well-behaved.

The foregoing background on Tuloy Village lent greater meaning to the concert at which the children, many of them looking like five-year olds, took part. As the attractive Corito Sarabia and the wiry Jay-R rendered Where is Love/Where is the Love, the children’s precision miming and movement arrested attention, drawing lusty applause. Followed Corito’s interpretation, which sustained full-throated volume, of “With a Song in My Heart”.

Many were teary-eyed when tenor George Yang gave a deeply moving rendition of You Raise Me Up, evoking memories of how the youngsters, miming in unison, are raised by the warmth, love and tender care of charitable individuals. Yang then sallied forth with an intense, vigorous version of Funniculi Funnicula. In an earlier dinner concert, leading tenor Nolyn Cabahug had sung this, thus demonstrating the incredibly rapid progress of Yang. Indeed, he seems to sound better at each performance.

Winsome Karla Gutierrez likewise combined classic and pop, i.e. Il Mio Cuore Va with Dust in the Wind, her voice mellifluous and full, her manner fetching and graceful.

Under fiery, authoritative Conductor Rodel Colmenar, the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra was spirited, forceful, vibrant. Earlier, a guitar-flute duo and the MPO String Quartet provided soothing background music.

I could not stay to listen to the richly talented popular violinist John Lesaca and to tenor Cabahug — he of the compelling, powerful, emotive voice. Leo Rialp directed the show.

The Piano Teachers’ Guild’s 18th annual piano festival will be at the Philamlife auditorium on Feb. 24 and March 2 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The concerts are free.

“Pista ng Musikang Pilipino”, chaired by Anthony Y. Say, will feature 300 pianists who passed auditions at the UP, UST, SSC, Adventist U. and the Greenhills Music Studio. Winners Darren Matias, Charisse Dumlao, 11-year old Denise Faith L. See, Franco Lorenzo Liwanag, Hannah Lyn B. Tan will perform.

German photographer and former World Press Photo judge Peter Bialobrzeski has been taking pictures of Manila’s cityscape and holding workshops for Philippine lensmen. On Feb. 26 at 6 p.m. the public can see the entire photo collection, talk to the photographers and Bialobrzeski at the Silvertens Gallery, 2320 Pasong Tamo Ext.

Internationally acclaimed Helen Quach and Alfonso “Coke” Bolipata will perform tomorrow, Feb. 24, 6 p.m. at the Bel-Air Village Park Multi-purpose Hall, Makati. Quach will conduct the MSO in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger Overture, Smetana’s Moldau and excerpts from Bernstein’s West Side Story. Virtuoso Coke will interpret Bruch’s Violin Concerto in G Minor and Massenet’s Meditation.