What a night! Sultry outside, romantic inside an almost-100-year-old house that has been described as a “rare reminder of genteel Filipino life during the Commonwealth period.”

If memories contribute to a history complete with poetry and music, Petty Benitez-Johannot has hit the bull’s-eye with a series of musical events staged at her MiraNila Heritage House and Library, where it sits in the shade of ancient trees towering over clinging vines and green, green grass. You could call it a green conservatory, yes, with its latest edition last Thursday featuring a tenor, a soprano, and a pianist performing “kundiman,” in the tradition of songs of love, separation, and loss.

Arthur Espiritu, tenor; Stefanie Quintin, soprano; and Najib Ismail, accompanying pianist, earned countless, heartfelt rounds of applause. I am not a music critic, but where I sat, I thought I heard every pianissimo note sung by tenor Espiritu. Plus, he has stage presence without being a heavyweight, if you know what I mean. Describing him thus, I am myself eager to hear what he will sound like from the stage of Cultural Center’s main theater, when it finally reopens.

It is not every day, not every month that Metro Manila has earned the right to appreciate music that can be felt because its native soil is the Filipino soul: Abelardo, Santiago, Silos, Cuenco, Umali, Rivera, Espino, Peña. With songs like “Mutya ng Pasig,” “Maalaala Mo Kaya,” and “Lagi Kitang Naalaala,” it should be Valentine’s Day every day! These are songs — music from the heart, to be heard by the heart, songs to sing if only because they’re as familiar as the national anthem — that make MiraNila such an appropriate music box for city folks to enjoy, notwithstanding the summer heat, traffic, inflation, the political noise and similar nonsense.

One can only wish that the current batch of music students waiting to earn their degrees from our conservatories, whether class 2026 or 2027 of UP, UST, St. Paul, St. Scholastica were among MiraNila’s audience last Thursday. Seated close to the stage and near the 100-year-old Steinway and Sons piano were Irene Marcos Araneta, Lin I. Bildner, Mariel Ilusorio, Lorna Kapunan, Alya Honasan, Babeth Lolarga, and Delia Albert.

How about featuring a harpist next, Petty?