(Twenty-ninth of a series) In 2004, Pinoy Jazz Traditions was launched at Merk’s Bar in Greenbelt 3, Makati. The following year it won the National Book Award. Its author was better known to many Manila listeners as a drummer than as a historian. Richie Quirino had spent three decades behind a kit before Anvil Publishing...
Category: Music
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FEU Bamboo Band celebrates liberation and heritage with ‘Malaya: Songs of Freedom’
The Far Eastern University (FEU) Center for the Arts proudly presents the FEU Bamboo Band in a concert titled “Malaya: Songs of Freedom” on Sept. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the historic FEU Auditorium in Manila. The hourlong concert honors the enduring spirit of liberty, national identity, and youth empowerment through the unique, resonant warmth...
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Portraits in Jazz: Dix Lucero plays the long game
(Twenty-eighth of a series) On a good night, there’s a particular kind of hush that falls over a small jazz room right before a solo begins—the clink of glasses pausing, the low hum of conversation dropping to nothing, every ear angling toward the stage. It’s in that silence that saxophonist Dix Lucero does his clearest...
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Why BTS refuses to join the Grammys
BTS, South Korea’s internationally renowned boy band, is not submitting an entry to the 2027 Grammy Awards. The announcement was made just one month after the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys, introduced five new categories – Best Asian Pop Music Performance, Best R&B Collaboration or Duo/Group Performance, Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance, Best...
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Manila Symphony Orchestra presents ‘Opera at Kundiman,’ honoring the soprano who sang Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ in Tagalog
To mark Buwan ng Wika in August, “Opera at Kundiman: The Legacy of Maestra Conching Rosal” will be presented on Aug. 29 by the Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO) Foundation Inc. and Standard Insurance, co-presented by EastWest Bank, ACMobility, and BYD, and in partnership with Far Eastern University (FEU) under “In Pursuit of Excellence: Celebration—The MSO...
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Portraits in Jazz: The joys of being Junji Delfino
(Twenty-seventh of a series) Junji Delfino was singing before she could remember not singing—at 4 years old, already finding melodies, and by 10, slipping into Manila’s jazz clubs with a father who wouldn’t have known how to keep her away even if he tried. Before she even turned 10, Junji recalls, her father Bert Delfino...
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Portraits in Jazz: For Mon David, jazz is always
(Twenty-sixth of a series) Mon David is, above all, a life force. To many, he is an animating principle—a presence that effortlessly shifts the energetic field around him. Whether channeled as prana, qi, or the Bergsonian élan vital, space itself transforms when Mon enters it, always leaving people and places better than they were before....
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When playing with your heart is all
This was one grand summer recital I wasn’t about to pass up. I knew no one from the children and teens who were having their culminating activity with The Aller School of Music at the Forest Wing, part of the John Hay Hotels in Baguio City. Yet I wanted to see them bare their souls....
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Portraits in Jazz: Winston Raval’s lifelong jazz journey
(Twenty-fifth of a series) After weeks of debating the best way to (re)introduce Winston Raval, Filipino jazz pianist, arranger, and composer, to 21st-century readers and jazz fans, I settled on this fun bit of history from writer and music critic Eric Caruncho in a piece he wrote for the Inquirer in February 2019. Eric rightly...
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Portraits in Jazz: Charito Vergara makes music happen
(Twenty-fourth of a series) I was obviously late to the Charito Vergara party, having caught her on stage only earlier this year when she was in Manila for a visit. But there’d been quite the buzz about the shows and workshops she held in Manila, Bacolod and Cagayan de Oro over the last several years....