Vien Ignacio is a ripe old musician at the age of 14. She plays the harp like someone twice her age.

Can you imagine what she and her harp will sound like when she turns 21?

Vien’s harp is a 38-kilo instrument that comes with 38 strings in gold, green, and red. Where I sat watching her last week, I counted four pedals (it could be six!). As she lives in Antipolo, I am curious whenever I attend her concerts, what kind of logistics and logic are needed to bring harp and harpist to Manila Pianos in Magallanes, where her concerts have been held in the last two years.

Vien started playing – you could imagine her playing with – her harp when she was three. She is the first and youngest musician to play the Mozart Harp and Flute Concerto, no sweat for someone who has won child prodigy awards left and right, including first prize in the Scandinavian International Instrumental Music Competition. Her glissandos glisten, her staccatos are sharp and smart. It goes without saying, she is pretty and poised.

For one so young, she has performed in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, as well as Antipolo. She has also been featured twice on Manila’s classical music radio station DZFE. All she needs now is an invitation to play at a command performance somewhere special, like Malacañang.

Last week, braving the threat of a “habagat,” Vien’s band of die-hard fans gathered at Manila Pianos to watch her and cellist Nehemiah Lipana, who provided contrast and what I’d call grounding. The program featured Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, Deborah Henson-Conant’s The Nightingale, her favorite contemporary piece, and Saint-Saëns’ The Swan. When the applause refused to die down, the duo obliged with “Gaano Kadalas ang Minsan.” Another round of encores followed, prompting Vien and Nehemiah to add Ave Maria to the evening’s repertoire.

By this time, as daylight began to dim with the appearance of heavy gray clouds, Vien took the microphone to warn her fans, “There’s going to be a brownout in the next ten minutes.” The warning meant cutting short the picture-taking with the star of the day, who was dressed in a gossamer gown with a black and white lace top.

Muy Vien, see you next year!