MEDIUM RARE

It’s the end of an era when the good sisters of St. Paul University, one of a handful of schools offering bachelor and doctoral degrees in music, opens its doors for a concert, “the first time in three years,” according to Dean Raul Sunico.
Opening-night honors on March 15 went to pianist Mariel Ilusorio and tenor Arthur Espiritu, a synchronous teamup where, after only two rehearsals, they were able to hit the notes in perfect unison, without skipping a beat. Arthur, back with us fulltime after chalking up a long record of operatic performances all over the US and Europe, took the lead by singing the 20 short songs from Schubert’s Song Cycle, The Fair Maid of the Mill, to tell the tender story of a farm boy who has a crush on a lovely maiden. On piano, the tall and willowy Mariel, blooming like never before, provided the ivory touch to match the tenor’s emotional range, from dreamy to longing, obsessing to despair and suicide. Schubert, as Mariel narrated, wrote the Song Cycle when he was 25 – how much love had he experienced? – just six short years before he died. (Many composers died young, why was that?)
In the audience were several of the 30 students from China who are enrolled in St. Paul for their doctorate in music education. To quote Dean Sunico, a teacher with a doctorate in music is “highly employable, much more so than you think.” In Mariel’s case, she’s as much a music teacher as a first-rate musician, holding regular classes at Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, UST, St. Scholastica, and Philippine High School for the Arts. She also teaches on-line, a feat that her father finds hard to understand, but then he’s not a musician.
The evening I spent at St. Paul with the musicians emitted a back-to-the-future vibe. Who knew we had missed, this much, a live classical music performance in such an intimate setting? Raul, former dean of UST’s music department and president of CCP, knows the value of music as an elusive, evanescent art to be played, felt, and enjoyed. Where there’s no music, there’s no imagination, is there?
A repeat performance of the Song Cycle is set for Wednesday the 22nd at Sunshine Place.