The best of 2024 in classical music and orchestral performance
Only three music ensembles and three conductors stood out in the year’s most notable performances: the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) under Maestro Grzegorz Nowak and Gerard Salonga, the Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO) under Sasha Makila, and the Manila Symphony Junior Orchestra (MSJO) under Jeffrey Solares.
My conductor of the year is Gerard Salonga, who led the PPO in the concert “Music, Movies, Magic” last Nov. 22. The conductor has matured a lot, and it showed. Watching him for the first time after many years of absence in the local concert scene recalled moments with PPO’s music director Oscar Yatco.
My orchestral ensemble of the year is the MSJO under Solares. They bagged gold at the Summa Cum Laude International Music Youth Festival in Vienna and another grand prize and another gold in a similar youth festival in Slovakia. Their send-off concerts in Manila left no doubts that they would bag the major prizes.
Jerome Rose (Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1) and Cecile Licad (Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1) are this year’s distinguished piano soloists of the PPO. They sizzled in January and March at the Samsung Theater and at the Metropolitan Theater, which had piano fans cheering again.
Rose and Licad are my pianists of the year.
Soloists
Two cello soloists of the MSO and the PPO provided exciting moments for cello fans: prize-winning Damodar das Castillo as MSO soloist in the Dvorak cello concerto and Grammy award-winning American cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio as the PPO soloist in Elgar Concerto.
My cellist of the year is the 16-year-old Das Castillo.
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 performed by the PPO under Novak is my orchestral gem of the year.
Strauss’ tone poem “Don Juan: Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life)” stole the show at the Bruch violin concerto with Shlomo Mintz as soloist.
Diomedes Saraza Jr.’s violin passages from the Strauss tone poem were simply electrifying. He explained the challenge of the piece thus: “The Strauss tone poem ‘Ein Heldenleben’ is considered a rite of passage for concertmasters. Playing that piece is not just learning the notes, it is also understanding the depth of the tone poem. For me to prepare something like that, I have to be emotionally energized. I cannot just focus on my solo part, but also make sure the string section is in sync with what the conductor wants. It’s quite a challenging part but it is so worth it.”
PPO’s “Music, Movies, Magic” didn’t just highlight the soloists (Camille Lopez Molina, Arman Ferrer, Lara Maigue and Saraza) and the superb conducting of Salonga. It also highlighted the directorial touch of Alexander Cortez, who did it with such good taste. To be working with soloists from the pop and classical genres and handling the “West Side Story” ensemble with limited space on the Samsung stage must be quite stressful, if not complicated.
Respect the artists
Cortez told Lifestyle: “It is not really difficult or complicated to pull that off with assorted personalities from the arts front. First you just have to respect the artists, from conductors to soloists and the dancers. Baritone Jonathan Velasco had a hand in repertoire selection. The one who did the videos also contributed to the total impact of the show. I respect the artistic discernment of coworkers in the production. After several meetings and consultations, I just realized they all delivered.”
Choosing “Be My Love” for Ferrer was easy for several reasons. “It’s my father’s favorite song, and it’s understandable as he is a Mario Lanza fan,” he said. On opening night, Ferrer brought the house down with that Lanza favorite.
Cris Villonco was another showstopper in the Michel Legrand medleys.
Maigue nailed Mozart’s “Vengeance” aria with every note clear as a bell.
For Cortez, directing a concert such as “Music, Movies, Magic” involves not just collaborating with conductor and soloists but also with people behind the scene, like the set designer, the video designer, the lighting designer, the sound engineer, the stylist and scriptwriter, among others.
Certainly, his directing days with Dulaang UP served him in good stead in combining traveling with studying. “I started watching plays in London’s West End, Boston, and Tanglewood, among other places. These travels were a life-changing influence on me. I would have been an agriculturist had I remained in UP Los Baños. That didn’t happen, as my love for theater started in the late ’60s. When the late Tony Mabesa (now National Artist for Theater) came back home to teach in UP, my passion and discipline for the theater eventually blossomed!”
The rest, as they say, is history.
The staging of “Music, Movies, Magic,” Cortez described as answered prayers. “As a servant of the theater, I am always guided by the sincerity of the work I do through hard work, patience and an imaginative mind.”
Grandeur and terrible loneliness
Another Curtis-trained keyboard artist, Jonathan Biss, will debut in Manila tonight, Dec. 9, 7 p.m. with an all-Schubert program, at the Ayala Museum.
Why an all-Schubert program?
Biss says the composer has become central to his life in the last few years. “There is a combination of grandeur and terrible loneliness in Schubert’s music that is unique, and moving in the extreme. The more I work on his music, the more layers I see in it—at first, the sheer beauty masks some of the more complicated qualities. Living with him has been one of the great gifts to my life.”
Biss’ Dec. 9 program includes Schubert Impromptu in f minor, D. 935 no. 1; Impromptu in B flat Major, D. 935 no. 3; Alvin Singleton Bed-Stuy Sonata (Philippine Premier) and Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A Major D.959.
For tickets, call CAEO at tel. 0920-9540053 or 0918-34703027; email josephuy2004@yahoo.com.
