Tenor Yang sings Jan. 29/Pianist Sunico dazzles, Chino in firm command

Eminent tenor George T. Yang will give a concert entitled “Yang Klassics, Timeless Classics” on Jan. 29, 2009, at the CCP main theater. He will be assisted by the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra.

Special guests Rachelle Gerodias and Kuh Ledesma, as also international concert pianist Raul Sunico will perform. Other participants will be Krystal Ashley Yang and the scholars of the Klassikal Music Foundation founded and headed by George Yang as chairman.

Starting to sing at Karaoke bars with friends, Yang discovered his vocal talent relatively late, and with the encouragement of pop icon Jose Mari Chan, he began to take voice lessons with leading soprano Rachelle Gerodias. Today, Yang has joined the ranks of the country’s top tenors, has performed in major concert halls and off-Broadway in New York where he sang the role of judge in Alejandro R. Roces’ musical “Something to Crow About”. He has released four CDs, the latest being “Always Yang: Timeless Songs by George Yang”.

Yang has virtually relinquished the management of Macdonald’s, of which he was founder and chairman, to his sons, thus enabling him to devote more time and energy to further honing his vocal skill and artistry, and to supervising his Klassikal Music Foundation which is aimed at helping aspiring music talents reach their goal as full-fledged artists.

At the Jan. 29 concert, the first batch of Yang Foundation scholars will perform: Fiona Eleni Gallano (St. Paul U. Manila), Elainne Marie Vibal (UP), Carl Trazo (SPUM), Joseph Carrillo (UST), Joy Ann Cacayan (UP) and Cipriano de Guzman Jr. (UST).

Sponsorship proceeds from the forthcoming concert will go to the Foundation.

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Celebrated international pianist Raul Sunico habitually dazzles his listeners, and last Dec. 13 he did so again. He might as well have been Liszt himself rendering the Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major. Liszt, with his incredible virtuosity, charisma and good looks, had noble-women fainting (or panting) as he ran his fingers over the keyboard while exhibiting his famous profile. The women at F. Santiago Hall did no such thing although Sunico’s technical mastery, brilliance and sparkle, his swift runs and thunderous chords, and what I have always observed in his performances, his massive densities, may have duplicated Liszt’s own.

Many musicologists regard Liszt’s works largely bombastic, windy and sentimental — and I partly agree with them. But left to an interpreter like Sunico, the Concerto acquired considerable substance, style and elegance. (The refined, flowing interplay between pianist and cellist Robert Tison in the Allegro Moderato was much to be admired.)

As usual, Sunico used no score, thus calling to mind his unparalleled feat of playing Rachmaninoff’s four Concertos in a single evening sans score.

Josefino “Chino” Toledo, wielding the baton over conspicuously young members of the Metro Manila Community Orchestra, must be rigorously honing their capabilities, for they show greater discipline each time they are heard. With singular focus, Toledo conducted the Liszt Concerto in a manner worthy of both composer and pianist.

In Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (New World), listeners exulted in the quivering pianissimos of the strings in the opening Adagio, and in the majestic blaring of the brasses, and the clear, firm, cohesive projection of the woodwinds in the closing Allegro con fuoco, as the orchestra conveyed Dvorak’s imagined New World and its Negro melodies and spirituals which the composer translated into his own distinctive and original fashion. Under Toledo’s dynamic and authoritative direction, an exhilarating intensity emanated from the ensemble.

Exuberantly expressed was the holiday spirit of “Christmas around the World” arranged by Toledo, and of the zestful, bouncy “Season’s Greetings” by James Christensen.

The wholly inspiring concert had Sunico and Toledo at their exciting best. The MCCO, the resident orchestra of Miriam College headed by president Dr. Patricia Licuanan, is a remarkably unique, pioneering ensemble which, under Toledo, has been giving premieres of works by budding composers. The chair of MCCO’s concert master Maria Victoria Regalario is an endowment of the Coyiuto Foundation.