Grand 10-piano concert in UST quadricentennial year

How to match the UST Conservatory’s recent concert “Sampung Mga Daliri atbp” at the CCP main theater? To begin with, the ten-pianos, as Fr. Rector Rolando de la Rosa points out in his message, is a unique, distinct innovation introduced by the Conservatory 27 years ago.

Further, the diverse program which ranged from Beethoven to pop music composers, was interpreted by a huge cast of 4,500, according to Dean Raul Sunico, a cast of students, faculty and alumni as instrumentalists, conductors and singers.

Sunico also disclosed that they were only half of the entire Conservatory population; even then, one wondered whether there was pandemonium backstage that evening. But with the absolute discipline onstage, order must have prevailed backstage.

Ten piano students performed with orchestra or ensemble for the first half of the program, with two playing on each piano for Beethoven’s opening “Egmonst Overture” with the UST Orchestra under conductor Jeffrey Solares who, with the pianists, conveyed grandeur and majesty while crystallizing Goethe’s dramatic Spanish-Flemish conflict. The total synchronization between pianos and orchestra was to characterize the rest of the program.

“Carmen Fantasy” featured the UST Wind Instrument under Michael Jacinto. Without the strings, the ensemble seemed rather too brassy and noisy, obliterating somewhat the melodious passages. But the pianists beautifully intoned the melody of the “Habanera” aria for which they were the principal players.

Kabaitan Bautista’s “Contagion” (on a theme by Nirvana) was fascinatingly creative, its lines flowing, with one of the pianists interspersing the work with a percussive accompaniment produced by a stick striking against the piano board.

In Lecuona’s “Malagueña and Andalucia”, the pianos often overpowered the guitars owing to the very nature of the instruments. However, the performers captured the composer’s lively rhythms.

Ricardo Calubayan conducted the UST Rondalla Ensemble in his own arrangement of A. Molina’s Lulay and P. Umali’s Pandangguhan, giving them a distinctively native and charming quality. Timothy Sosmeña drew lusty applause as he conducted the USTeMundo in his own inventive arrangement of the Sampung Mga Daliri. Theme, with a contingent of percussion players simulating ethnicity as they struck sticks against wood (or metal?), the pianists providing the melodic counterpoint.

After intermission, the student pianists were replaced by faculty and alumni, the rapport with the orchestra as flawless and precise, but the pianists now obviously taking on more technically challenging pieces.

Selections from Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals” were arresting for being eloquently descriptive and, more particularly, for the vibrant, buoyant and robust baton-wielding of Renato Lucas over the UST Symphony Orchestra. Listening to “The Swan”, ballet-lovers must have called to mind great ballerinas — e.g. Karsavina, Toumanova, et al — exquisitely depicting the swan.

The concert had something for everyone; jazz and pop music aficionados felt elated over the UST Jazz Band’s 50s and 60s medley (arranged by Emy Munji) which included “I’ll Remember April,” “Historia de un Amor,” “I’m in the Mood for Love,” “If I Give My Heart to You” under the versatile Rañera.

Faculty and alumni pianists again enchanted in Strauss’ Fledermaus Fantasy this arranged by Kabaitan Bautista, as they highlighted the lilt of the florid waltzes.

Ako’y Isang Tomasino and the original UST hymn, the latter by Julio Esteban Anguita, rendered by the Coro Tomasino, Liturgikon Vocal Ensemble and chorus classes, roused the college spirit of Thomasians present. Jun Francis Jaranilla, bass baritone was the brilliant soloist. Earlier, voice faculty soloists vastly enriched the chorus in Kundiman Medley, with piano arrangement by Sunico and orchestral arrangement by conductor Rañera.

“The March and Dance” from Verdi’s Aida had three trumpet and three trombone players on one side of the stage, three trumpet and two horn players on the other, the two groups exchanging alarums in bristling martial fashion.

All choirs consisting of some 200 singers and the symphony orchestra under Rañera produced a massive, thunderous, overwhelming volume — an awesome climax to the grandest concert yet presented by the UST Conservatory, indeed a befitting celebration of its quadricentennial year.