The 2nd Cebu International Guitar Festival

CEBU, Philippines — Cebu’s affinity with the guitar is just about as well-known as the Cebuano’s love for music, so much so that the instrument has become symbolic of Cebu.This familial closeness was very much in top form during the well-attended run of this year’s recently concluded Cebu International Guitar Festival.

Titled “Kinablit 2019: The 2nd Cebu International Guitar Festival,” this year’s holding of the event was mainlined by guitar exhibits and concerts at Robinsons Galleria Cebu and Summit Galleria Cebu from September 6 to 8.

Ancillary workshops and master class lectures were also among the event’s highlights, which included sessions on resolving rhythmic problems and improving music-sheet reading skills with Filipino classical guitarist Michael Dadap, a practical musicianship workshop with Ecuadorian guitarist Rodrigo Rodriguez,  a bossa nova comping, rhythm and chord voicings workshop with Filipino-American bossa nova and jazz guitarist Bob Basa and a masterclass session with Mexican classic guitarist Manuel Rubio, among many others.

The three-day event’s string of concerts included performances by the aforementioned workshop facilitators, along with performances by the St. Scholastica Guitar Ensemble, the Davao City High School Guitar Ensemble, the Guitar Foundation of the Philippines Inc. Junior Ensemble, and the Sparrow Guitar Ensemble.

Japanese singer-songwriter Kochira Takane also performed traditional and contemporary Okinawan songs/pieces with a hosozo shamisen, a three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument.

Now on its second year, the Cebu International Guitar Festival is at the forefront in setting the spotlight on the guitar here in Cebu.

Historians note that Cebu’s closeness with the guitar dates back to the Spanish period in the country, when Spanish friars brought the “kitara” to the province (“kitara” is the term for the guitar which was widely used at the time). The friars are said to have had initially trained local craftsmen and artisans to fix broken guitars saving them the trouble of having to send broken guitars to Mexico for repairs. In time, the task of fixing broken guitars escalated into making guitars from scratch, which spurred a guitar-making tradition that’s distinctly Cebuano.