Bravo Brave Colegio

Last Monday I was in this school, which now bears the name "Universidad" but one that will always be for me the Colegio de Santa Isabel.

I was not expecting much that night; I was there to provide moral support to Beth, my sister-in-law and my niece, Teris, who were both playing the violin as part of the symphony orchestra of music majors, faculty and alumni.

We came in just as the musicians were filing in. The conductor followed and soon the title of the piece the orchestra would play was flashed on the small screen, stage left. Antonio San Buenaventura's "Mindanao Sketches." That was not your regular musical piece. Evoking - and exoticizing - the sounds of Southern Philippines, the work demanded that some other instruments be used.  Those instruments the audience that night soon discovered much to their amusement were not the kind that you associated with anything "musical."

Right in the middle of the symphonic music rising, the voices of some of the musicians also rose, half wailing and half chanting. Soon, the musicians were dropping down their respective musical instruments as they created sounds with their hands slapping their thighs. Unorthodox. Unusual. Daring.

In another place, in a big city perhaps, that piece would be just one of those experimentations in music, not even avant-garde at all. But in this small city of Naga, that music was one that could provoke rather than lull. Soon, the playing ended.

The playing was uneven. And, I believe the conductor would agree. Mr. Aldecoa, the conductor, guided his small group of musicians to the difficult piece. Later, I would learn that the performers had some few weeks to practice. If that night the musicians were beaming, I would not blame them. They were performing musical miracles after another. They were paying tribute to personal interests to culture and music, paying tribute to songs that one did not know anymore, conjuring the world of music and arts and their intricacies and refinements. That balmy night, Mr. Aldecoa was showing the gift of this college, of this university whose status sprung from its brave and daring ways with music. That night, after almost forty years, I realized that this colegio had always been consistent - or even stubborn - about its passion of teaching this city about music that other institutions soon tired of.