Cebu City band doing weekly concert?

Few months ago, I asked Mr. Manuel “Manny” Lapingcao if he has ever heard the Cebuano song “Kala-ay.” He took time to search for an answer. Manny, is a known singing talent, a respected band leader and a creative composer. The praise songs he has written, the modern beat that he has given to classical Visayan music and his “bis-rock” music show his virtuoso. Against that wealth of his musical background, he tried to meet my question with unusual discomfiture as he sank deep into the past to find an answer. Eventually, he confessed to have never heard of it. So, I told Manny that “Kala-ay” was one of my father’s favorites. In my elementary years, Papa Napoleon would play the piano and sang that song to his heart’s delight. I got a copy of “Kala-ay” and gave it to Manny with a request for him to arrange it for a possible vocal rendition by All Men Praise, a choir that he leads. Few days later, Manny presented me with an exquisite arrangement of that song. It is so beautiful that if given reasonable public exposure, it can signal a kind of renaissance.

I met this word “renaissance” while I was in high school. Both our teachers in History and English literature tried to give meat and substance to the word beyond its ordinarily acceptable meaning of “rebirth” or “revival” or “renewed interest.” The renaissance was a period in European history that perceptively ushered the transition to modernity. Arts and culture bloomed. Philosophy flourished. That period in the Middle Ages, characterized all efforts to surpass ideas and achievements of the past.

In the off-tangent nature of this column, I am tinkering with idea of a renaissance in certain definable aspects of arts and culture. I feel that after Republic Act 9155, otherwise called the Governance of Basic Education Act, was passed in 2001 transforming the name of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) to the Department of Education (DepEd) and redefining the role of field offices, we seemed to have given less premium to arts, culture and sports which are areas of human endeavor the Cebuano excels in and is known for.

His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, might as well include in his Singapore-like dream for Cebu City a musical renaissance. There is so much talent among Cebuanos of the genius Minggoy Lopez had. We are already few who remember Minggoy’s “Rosas Pandan,” “Kamingaw sa Payag,” and “Krutsay Sakayanon,” and admittedly our number is diminishing. Sooner than later, his musical “obra maestra” will fade into oblivion unless….. We need Mayor Rama to start a cultural renaissance lest our golden past be entombed in utter forgetfulness. Why not organize a Cebu City band and let it regularly play beautiful, maybe even soulful, music on weekends at the Plaza Independencia? Behold a weekly concert of sort! While these gifted Cebuano musicians and singers earn a living, more importantly they enrich and reinvigorate our culture. Without doubt, they too, provide a wholesome kind of entertainment. Ask Manny Lapingcao and he will tell you music is the language of the soul?

    In many occasions, I had the chance of watching varied shows in the barangays. Listening to their local singers rendering an unbelievably wide genre of music gave me goose bumps. Cebu indeed, has an abundance of vocalists waiting to be discovered. While not yet fully developed, they can polish their artistry in the weekly soiree hosted by the city. I am certain that these home grown talents can become new Pilita Corrales or Dulce or perhaps a singing Mayor Rama. Such a scene will surely present a different angle of Singapore-like Cebu City.