The safest tranquilizer

Vicky Zubiri has been through exceptional trials in life, including her discovery of a benign brain tumor that she has to live with. But she breezes through life with a song in her heart, and it brings a magical lilt to her ever-present laughter.

“Music,” she says, “is like a tranquilizer. It not only leaves you tranquil, it also entertains you.” She grew up amid the arias of her mom, coloratura singer Rosita Ocampo Fernandez. When she was pregnant with her youngest daughter Stephanie, she listened to Vivaldi and put the speakers close to her belly.

Small wonder then that when Jovianney Emmanuel Cruz, the most internationally awarded Filipino concert pianist and TOYM awardee, approached Vicky to support a concert season he was putting together at the Insular Life Theatre in Alabang, Muntinlupa, she immediately said “Oh my God!” It meant, “Yes!” For Jovianney had shown her his lineup for the concert season, and she was almost teary-eyed with joy. “It was fantastic,” she explains.

Vicky is a denizen of  Ayala Alabang whenever she is not in Bukidnon (“My husband Joe and I built our home in Ayala Alabang when lots there cost only P400 per square meter,” she recalls), and she feels residents of south of Manila and Makati don’t have to go the distance to bask in the arts scene.

She laments that though Ayala Alabang and its neighboring villages, including those in Parañaque and Sta. Rosa, have residents who appreciate the arts scene — there was a dearth of classical art in the area. The arts, according to Vicky, did not have a home in the south (with the exception, of course, of individual homes where it flourished).

Until the Insular Life Theatre gave it a home. Though a resident of Quezon City, Jovianney had discovered the beautiful, state-of-the-art theater during a piano festival he held there two years ago. He was impressed with the venue and found a supporter of the arts in Insular Life chairman Vicente Ayllon. He thought of a concert season in the theater this year, and aptly named it, “Fil Fest 2008, a Celebration of Music and Dance.”

Filfest Cultural Foundation also stands for Friends of the Insular Life Cultural Foundation, of which Vicky is president. The other members are Triccie Sison, Bettina Pou, Denise Manosa, Jovianney, Rosario de los Santos and  Lina Racho.

The lineup of performers for the Filfest concert season’s inaugural gala included Alfonso Bolipata (violin), Sung-won Yang (cello), Jovianney himself (piano) and Josefino Chino Toledo (conducting the Metro Manila Community Orchestra).

The second show had soprano Deeda Barretto and baritone Lionel Guico with Najib Ismail on the piano for a concert entitled Breathless.  The third show, a Filipiniana concert that unfolds this Saturday, June 21, features the talented Gerard Salonga, conductor of the most in-demand orchestra in the country today, FILharmoniKA. Gerard and his orchestra, which includes his wife DJ, will be performing the works of Maestro Lucio San Pedro (Sa Ugoy ng Duyan and Lahing Kayumanggi), Col. Antonino Buenaventura (By the Hillside), Angel Matias Pena (Romance and Peace Beyond) and Santiago (Pakiusap). Guest performer is Buenaventura’s granddaughter Regina, on the violin.

Though he has been and continues to be musical director of major pop concerts (including those of his sister Lea), Gerard says that it is every musician’s dream to be part of a classical concert season.

“And to have one in a place where the audience is dwindling — the audience needs to be rebuilt in the Philippines — that’s the main challenge,” says Gerard, who graduated summa cum laude from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. “I look at it as an opportunity for me to make classic music — which at first you think, what does this have to do with majority of Filipinos — relevant. It’s a challenge for us musicians to make it relevant because it is! It’s necessary for human existence. It’s like clean water and education.”

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All this of course, plus the support of Insular Life (and other sponsors like Brittany Corp.), is music to Jovianney’s ears. A former child prodigy, Jovianney began his piano studies at the age of three with his mother, Lourdes Lacson Villanueva-Cruz. At six, he was invited to give a command performance at Malacañang for then First Lady Imelda Marcos. The Young Artists Foundation of the Philippines then granted him a scholarship for piano studies in Manchester, England and in New York.

But he chose to return to the Philippines because he wanted to share what he had learned with his kababayans (yes, returning heroes like him do exist!).

“I believe in pop culture,” affirms Jovianney, who is a member of the faculty at the UP College of Music and St. Scholastica’s College, “but I also believe, being a purist classical musician myself, in balance. Pop culture is what we live with, but Filipino music is not Gary V. or Martin. Filipino music is San Pedro, Buenaventura, Pena. There has to be something to create equilibrium between pop and classical music. New York, Paris, Vienna and London have found that equilibrium. It would be a waste if we don’t expose both Filipino musicians and audiences to this kind of music. All music — pop, jazz, rap —  stemmed from classical music. Filipinos are known worldwide to be very musical. So we’re basically just filling in the gaps.”

Also slated at the Filfest 2008 are performances by Ballet Philippines (July 5), Renato Lucas (cello) and Nena del Rosario Villanueva (piano) on Aug. 16, the laureates of the Ultimate Pianist 2006 competition (Aug. 30), Aima Labra Makk in recital (Sept. 13), the Clarion Chamber Ensemble (Sept. 27), Alfonso Bolipata (violin), Jovianney himself (piano) with Gerard Salonga and FILharmoniKA (Oct. 11) and the Opera Miniscola (On Oct. 25 and 26).

Vicky says their target audience is not just Alabang’s well-heeled crowd, but also the children of Alabang’s welfare centers and orphanages. She recalls how the last concert seemed to bring peace to these children’s hearts and minds, as they sat, quiet and enthralled, at the balcony of the Insular Life Theatre.

During the intermission, Vicky followed them to the rest room, and she was amazed at the appreciative comments she heard from the children, who didn’t know her from Eve.

In these days of skyrocketing gasoline and food prices, kidnappings and bank heists, we all need some calm, a respite not from reality but from the worries that go with it.

Classical music is a tranquilizer without a prescription. And the side effects?

Heavenly.

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 (For inquiries and tickets call Caring or Virgie at tel. no 666-4095 or Tinky at 0918-9419474.)

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(You may e-mail me at [email protected])