Thursday, December 27, 2012

#210: Light in your absence

Freedom Park, Tagum City
2012

Thursday, December 20, 2012

#209: Illuminate me

QACS, Tagum City
2012

Sunday, December 16, 2012

#208: The tail of two towers

Hong Kong
2012

Monday, September 24, 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

#108: Backstage access



Tagum City
2012

Musikahan, a monumental music festival in the booming City of Tagum in Southern Mindanao, is immensely huge celebration of music of the plucked strings, brass instrument and choral groups in a form of competitions participated by the finest ensemble all over the country. For a week, different venues of the City including big commercial malls, general hospitals, City jail, place of worship, home for the aged and the market place, were staged with unique performances that's not usually shown and projected on the mainstream media today.

For more than a decade, Musikahan has set the bar a notch higher and kept the momentum of last year's 3rd International Rondalla Festival touted as "Querdas ng Pagkakaisa" or Strings of Unity that gathered  top performers from 16 Asian countries as well as first-rate artists in the Philippines. Diversed aural sound and intricate performances were witnessed that's sublime and surreal experiences to the most of us.  

This year, Musikahan was well participated by seasoned Rondalla groups mostly in their youths. Playing on the center stage beamed with the spotlight, as if stripped off of their childhood innocence, children  executed mastery of the plucked strings with an adult discipline that's impressingly surprising.

When I came across the backstage and the holding area for these children artists, it reminded me that kids are still kids. As if not in competition, they mingled with one another like they're friends before. The girls in one corner forming circles and playing the princess' name game and laughing and giggling from time to time. Little boys were occupied running back and forth chasing one another. While many were busy rehearsing, there were still on their mothers clinging for some tender care.