Manila, Philippines (31 Jan 2010).  Brainstorming for the choir started about a year ago when over their usual dinner and bellini, Robert Delgado and John Pamintuan thought of forming an elite group of singers that would go beyond the usual thrust of competitions by amateur choirs.

Things even got better when Dean Acoymo of the UP College of Music suggested that the mandate of the group be: to constantly output new Filipino and Asian choral works, not only to edify Asian choral literature but also to present the ever-changing paradigm of Filipino compositions which always set a trend in the international stage.  It would then be the group's aim to create a strong movement beginning in Southeast Asia affecting the whole world.

And so The Chamber Choir of Asia is born, with much interest and eagerness coming from the invited singers, comprising the creme de la creme of the Philippines' choral music scene.  Once a month, internationally prominent Filipino conductors, composers and singers come together for two hours and sight-sing through the most terribly challenging and demanding choral music ever written and share with each other their musical intelligence, energy and soul.

"It was as if the gods decided to take a break and go down to earth, and play frisbee while singing their music," said an observer.  And of course, the night is not complete without a scrumptious fare, care of the group's dear partners Clawdaddy and Crustasia, through the support of Red Crab Managing Partner, Raymund Magdaluyo, himself a choral enthusiast having sung with the Ateneo College Glee Club.  If music be the bond of our souls, let food be the bond of our hearts.

The group munches about 17 new pieces over the short rehearsal and would have digested a total of about 50 new titles by  John Pamintuan and new arrangements of Asian folksongs by Robert Delgado until the launching concert 11 April 2010 (details TBA). 

As Artistic Director Jonathan Velasco so aptly puts it, "life without music is a mistake; resistance is futile."

postscript: the day after this was published, we received about 480 fan mails and 7,000 hits on our website from 21 countries!  Thank you all for your interest in The Chamber Choir of Asia!  At the moment, membership is by invitation only and will be open to Asian conductors by June 2010.  During the second season concert in September 2010, five conductors from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Indonesia will perform with the group in the world premiere of a commissioned work from Vytautas Mishkinis.


(click on photo for a larger view)

Click on thumbnail to view larger image

In celebration of Robert Schumann's 200th birth year, (1810-2010) Rudolf Golez (pianist) and John Pamintuan (baritone) team up to perform Fantasiestücke Op. 12 and Dichterliebe Op. 48. The concert  series commences in July 2010 in Baguio, followed by recitals in Cebu, Bacolod, Manila, and capped off by performances in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.  A compact disc recording containing the two long works will also be released.

Fantasiestücke, Op. 12, are eight pieces for piano, written in 1837. Schumann titled the work inspired by the 1814 collection of novellas Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier by his favourite author, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and dedicated it to Fräulein Anna Robena Laidlaw (1819–1901), an accomplished and attractive 18-year old Scottish pianist with whom Schumann had carried on a brief flirtation.*

Dichterliebe, 'The Poet's Love' (composed 1840), is the best-known song cycle of Robert Schumann (Op. 48). The texts for the 16 songs come from the Lyrisches Intermezzo of Heinrich Heine, composed 1822-1823, published as part of the poet's Das Buch der Lieder. Following the song-cycles of Franz Schubert (Die Schöne Müllerin and Winterreise), those of Schumann constitute part of the central core of the genre in musical literature.*

*from wikipedia

Feb 22-25 Seoul, Taegu
Feb 26 Dichterliebe rehearsal
Feb 27 The Chamber Choir of Asia (TCCA) rehearsal
Mar 4-8 Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe
Mar 11-16 Singapore, Indonesia
Mar 22-24 Recording for Sisters of Mary
Mar 25 Dichterliebe rehearsal
Mar 26 TCCA rehearsal
Mar 27-April 7 Germany
April 9-14 TCCA Launching Concert and National Convention
April 15-20 Singapore, Indonesia
April 22-May 18 New York, Pennsylvania
May 20-25 Singapore, Indonesia
May 26 TCCA rehearsal
May 27-30 Osaka


glimpses

of summer:
June - New York, Malaysia, PCDA National Convention
July - Shaoxing, Baguio
Aug - San Francisco, Bacolod, Osaka, Kobe
Sept - Cebu

of autumn:
Oct - Spain
Nov - Germany, Austria, Switzerland

I just received word from Mr. Masahiro Kishimoto from Osaka tonight that six mixed choirs from Japan are coming together in a concert and performing my music in July.  And everybody knows what this means... Yeah! summer parteeh in Nippon!  Although I will also be in Kobe in two weeks, but who will ever get tired of visiting Japan?!

Seriously, it is an honor that KANKONREN, composed of six university mixed choirs in the Kansai area, have chosen to sing my pieces.  Thanks so much to Panamusica (represented by Mr. Satoshi Hattori and Ms. Hideko Hirata), my official distributor of partitur and CDs in Asia, for making my music available to a very wide choral audience!

(click on the logo to redirect to Panamusica site)

I taught Crucifixus today for the first time today here in Indonesia, and although I foresaw the technical difficulty of the piece (especially because I wrote it), and am familiar with the vocal technique necessary to perform the piece effectively, I wasn't prepared for the "choir-having-to-get-used-to-the-syncopation" part and easily found it one of the most challenging pieces I taught at first sight!

I will not anymore mention conducting the 10/4 time and cueing the entrance of the tenors while shaping the lines of the basses and keeping the inner voices in correct rhythm.  So I'm rolling one partitur and hitting it on my head!

Here's to the other conductors who painstakingly (or effortlessly) taught their choirs my current best selling piece: Anna Tabita Piquero, Mark Anthony Carpio, Dr. Joel Navarro, Bing Rio, and a couple hundred more conductors around the world.  Hats off to you guys, I was Crucifixused today! hahaha

Manila, Philippines.  Brainstorming for the choir started about a year ago when over their usual dinner and bellini, Robert Delgado and John Pamintuan thought of forming an elite group of singers that would go beyond the usual thrust of competitions by amateur choirs.

Things even got better when Dean Acoymo of the UP College of Music suggested that the mandate of the group be: to constantly output new Filipino and Asian choral works, not only to edify Asian choral literature but also to present the ever-changing paradigm of Filipino compositions which always set a trend in the international stage.  It would then be the group's aim to create a strong movement beginning in Southeast Asia affecting the whole world.

And so The Chamber Choir of Asia is born, with much interest and eagerness coming from the invited singers, comprising the creme de la creme of the Philippines' choral music scene.  Once a month, internationally prominent Filipino conductors, composers and singers come together for two hours and sight-sing through the most terribly challenging and demanding choral music ever written and share with each other their musical intelligence, energy and soul.

"It was as if the gods decided to take a break and go down to earth, and play frisbee while singing their music," said an observer.  And of course, the night is not complete without a scrumptious fare care of the group's dear partners Clawdaddy and Crustasia, through the support of Red Crab Managing Partner, Raymund Magdaluyo, himself a choral enthusiast having sung with the Ateneo College Glee Club.  If music be the bond of our souls, let food be the bond of our hearts.

The group munches about 17 new pieces over the short rehearsal and would have digested a total of about 50 new titles by  John Pamintuan and new arrangements of Asian folksongs by Robert Delgado until the launching concert on the opening night of the Philippine Choral Directors' Association (PCDA) National Convention in April 2010. 

As Artistic Director Jonathan Velasco so aptly puts it, "life without music is a mistake; resistance is futile."

our proud partner from the Red Crab group, located at the 6th level Shangrila Mall, and at the High Street Fort Bonifacio

Conservatorio
Udal
Musika Eskola
Leioa


Two of our principal lines of work throughout all these years have been, on the one hand, the direct contact with composers of different styles and countries in order to enrich our repertoire, and on the other, acquiring a commitment with the creation of new musical piece for children's choir.


We sum up next the most notable orders of our aims carried out by some excellent persons of the world in composition, owing to the different realized recordings, tours or other important moments
in the life of the choir.


click here to redirect
to website in Spanish



COMMISSIONED COMPOSERS:

LAMINAK. Albert Alcaraz. Alicante 1978
NON DEGUN, NON? Junkal Guerrero. Euskadi 1968
DONA NOBIS PACEM. Francisco Ibáñez-Iribarria. Euskadi 1965
IRATXOA. Eva Ugalde. Euskadi 1973
DIZDIZKA ZERUAN. Eva Ugalde. Euskadi 1973
TRES VILLANCICOS DEL PERÚ. Dante Andreo. Argentina 1949
MISA DE LEIOA. Dante Andreo. Argentina 1949
CON TOMILLO Y ROMERO. Mariano Jiménez. Navarra 1970
PELAGRIA. Mariano Jiménez. Navarra 1970
AVE MARIA. Mariano Jiménez. Navarra 1970
QUANDO CORPUS MORIETUR. Mariano Jiménez. Navarra 1970
AVE JESU. Xabier Sarasola. Euskadi 1960
GIZON ON BAT. Javi Busto. Euskadi 1949
ITSASOA LAINO DAGO. Tone Bianca Dahl. Noruega 1965
HODIE CHRISTUS NATUS EST. Ko Matsushita. Japón 1962
CANÇÓ DE BRESSOL. Xavier Pastrana. Cataluña 1977
ANGELUS. Josu Elberdin. Euskadi 1976
MAGNIFICAT. Josu Elberdin. Euskadi 1976
EN ESTA NOCHE LOS PASTORCITOS. Marcelo Beltrán. Murcia 1967
HIRU ERREGE KANTA. David Azurza. Euskadi, 1968
GAUDETE!/PUER NATUS. Pelle Olofson. Suecia, 1961
PATER NOSTER. Julio Domínguez. Galicia, 1965
TU ES. Vytautas Mishkinis. Lituania, 1954
NOEL/EN BELÉN. Alejandro Yagüe. Burgos, 1947
VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS. Kentaro Sato. Japón, 1981
SANCTUS. Michael McGlynn. Irlanda, 1964
GABON DUT ANUNTZIO! Fernando Velázquez. Euskadi, 1976
LUX AETERNA. John Pamintuan. Filipinas, 1972
DIES IRAE. John Pamintuan. Filipinas, 1972

 

I was looking for a nice rendition of Wildhorn-Bricuse's Someone Like You (from Jekyll and Hyde) on youtube  and found out that Sumi Jo has a recording of the song from her album Only Love.

Sumi Jo is a Korean coloratura soprano who rose to international superstardom with her dazzling portrayal of the Queen of the Night from Mozart's Magic Flute.  There is even a video where Sumi Jo and Cecilia Bartoli audition for Maestro Herbert von Karajan.

What's astounding about Sumi Jo's rendition is that her classical training is very apparent.  You do not only hear the talent, but also the technique in her interpretation.  She sings as if the voice is part of the orchestra, if you can actually do that with the human voice, and as if she is the conductor, shaping the sound of a whole ensemble inside her voice.  I find most broadway singers belting the songs when they perform, singing boldly, soulfully, but not in the right amounts.  TELENOVELIC.

Sumi Jo's employment of vocal and tonal colors in the recording is limitless: she can summon the deepest of emotions with a wide, big, broad, open sound, and the subtlest of turns and phrasing with a strong breath technique holding the voice back in a gradual and painful decrescendo.  The result is a very affective and effective marriage between text and music, music and performer, performer and listener.