Jesse Lucas set to music a poem by Maningning Miclat
titled “Ginugunita Kita” and was welcomed by viewers when first aired
on TV and was passed online by hundreds of netizens last May.
Critics, music lovers and avid fans watched it, and seven
other Lucas songs of Maningning poems, at the Aldaba Recital Hall of the UP
Diliman Theater on the fifth and last Saturday of the same month. Said songs,
and more, will be featured at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino of the Cultural Center
of the Philippines on September 3, back to back with the 2015 Maningning Miclat Trilingual Poetry Awards featuring
Kammerchor Manila. It is aptly entitled “Ginugunita Kita.”
Lucas is a multi-awarded composer for film,
television, theater and dance. Miclat was a trilingual poet, award-winning
visual artist and art teacher. Directed by film and theater actor Roeder
Camaňag, the performance will feature soloist Banaue Miclat-Janssen and master
cellist Renato Lucas, together with singer Al Gatmaitan and artist Delphine
Buencamino.
MICLAT//LUCAS TANDEM
Maningning Miclat was
a poet, fictionist and essayist in English, Filipino and Chinese as well as a painter
in Western and Chinese genre. A Bachelor of Fine Arts graduate in UP Diliman,
she was a fellow of the U.P. National Writer's Workshop, Silliman Writer's Workshop and Rio Alma
Poetry Clinic. Her Chinese poems made her one of the top-rated women poets in Beijing.
With Ryan
Cayabyab and Chino Toledo as mentors, Jesse Lucas won awards from FAMAS which
catapulted him to the Hall of Fame, and from the Gawad Urian, Young Critics
Circle, Gawad Tanglaw and Aliw. In 2005, he won an award from the Screamfest
International Film Festival in Los Angeles, USA. CCP’s Tanghalang Pilipino, Dulaang UP, Dramatis Personae, Gantimpala Theater
Foundation, Ballet Philippines and the Philippine Ballet Theater have adapted
his music.
Lucas was deeply inspired by Maningning’s book of poetry,
Voice from the Underworld (Anvil
Publishing House, 2000, 2002, 2015). He
says, "I immediately connected with the words and verses. The words used
form their own cadence. Each word seemed carefully selected to form a given
rhythm that supports its theme.” He further says, “The poems of Maningning
Miclat are almost melodious that I can hear the music through the poetic
images. They spoke and at the same time sang to me poignant thoughts about
life, pain and love. These are the foundation of Ginugunita Kita’s music.”
He adds, “The experience in writing the music was really
meditative and cathartic at the same time. It feels like I have discovered a
new language, a language that speaks directly to the soul."
MICLAT/MICLAT, LUCAS/LUCAS COLLABORATION
Lucas set to music Maningning’s poems such as Ginugunita Kita, Tawag, Duet (nina Rizal at Bracken), Kulay sa Bagyo, Ang
Naliligaw, A Stare, Verses # 2, To Catch a Second and Turn it to Forever, Panibugho and Shi Bu Shi (in Chinese, translated “Isn’t It?). They will be
sang by Banaue Miclat-Janssen with Renato Lucas on the cello and Jesse Lucas on
the piano.
Miclat-Janssen sings
the opera, acts and dances on stage and hones young artists as professor of theatre arts at UP Diliman. She
obtained her Master of Fine Arts from the City
University of New York and her Bachelor of Arts from UP Diliman. In New York, she
attended voice lessons from Evelyn Mandac, Robert Carpenter, and CUNY's Judylee
Vivier. She had a stint at the Metropolitan Opera in such productions of
Salome, Faust, La Boheme, Don Carlo, I Puritani and La Traviata. She has
performed at the CCP, UP Abelardo Hall, UP Theater and Ateneo de Manila
University.
Renato Lucas is one of
the finest cellists in the country. His schools included UP Diliman College of
Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music (USA), Royal Northern College of
Music (England), Hochschule fur Musik Detmold (Germany), and Universitaet der
Kunst Berlin (Germany). He has been the principal soloist of the Philippine
Philharmonic Orchestra for three decades. He has performed as soloist with the
Manila Symphony Orchestra, Manila Chamber Orchestra, and UST Symphony Orchestra,
as well as the CCP's Filipino Artist Series, Pundaquit Arts Festival, Las Piňas
Bamboo Organ Festival, and the Maningning Poetry Awards.
Kammerchor Manila
and the Maningning Awards
Kammerchor Manila (KM) stormed the Czech
Republic by becoming the Absolute and Grand Prix winner in the 42nd
Festival of Songs Olomouch last year.
It garnered four gold medals
in such categories as superior mixed adult choir (earning 98 pts), mixed adult choir (100
pts), folklore a capella (100 pts), and
the spiritual, gospel and pop category (100 pts). Its three perfect scores bested
such finalists as Mesani Pevski Zbor Pomlad
of Slovenia, Vocalisti Rostochienses
of Germany, Temasek Junior College
of Singapore and Mesani Pevski Zbor Svoboda of Slovenia. A nation’s pride indeed for a
church-based choir in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary Parish in West Triangle, Quezon
City.
KM will herald the winners of the 2015 Maningning
Miclat Trilingual Poetry Awards.
MMAFI
The Maningning Miclat Art Foundation, Inc. (MMAFI)
was organized in 2001 to encourage creativity and to recognize, award, and
nurture outstanding and talented young poets and artists 28 years old and below.
Maningning Miclat passed on at age 28.
Its poetry competitions in Filipino, English and
Chinese which started in 2003 are held during odd-numbered years and the painting
contests in even-numbered years. The grand winners receive P28,000.00, a Julie
Lluch trophy and books such as Voice from the Underworld by Maningning; Beyond
the Great Wall: A Family Journal by Mario, Alma, Maningning & Banaue
Miclat,which won the National Book Award for biography in 2007; Secrets of
the Eighteen Mansions by Mario Miclat which made it to the list of the Man
Asian Literary Prize; and Fairground: A Literary Feast.
The prizes reflect the Foundation's commitment to
young talents. Founding MMAFI board member, Edna Manlapaz, likens them to young
plants which "shoot up from the ground to reach for the sun and drink in
the rain (and) grow into strong saplings. In time they stand tall on the hills,
trees that mark our horizon."
Ginugunita Kita is presented by the Cultural Center of the
Philippines, MMAFI, the Talent Factory, Inc and the Artists’ Playground.
For inquiries,
please contact, 0917-8478489; 0936-7097154. Tickets are available at the CCP
Marketing Department (832-1125 loc. 1806), the CCP Box Office (832-3704) or
Ticketworld at National Bookstore (891-9999). #
