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.

Experiencing an overdose of the Christmas spirit, gifts, carols, carol contests, parties, lights, concerts, lanterns, stereos blaring loudly with songs of the season, somehow I miss Hamburg, where everything is magical leading up to Christmas day, and then on the 26th of December, everything is gone, as if nothing happened, no season went by.  The city cleans up pretty well.

Somehow I miss that.  Can we stop with the celebrations already?  Can our lives just go back to normal now?  It's beginning to be kind of stressful, ho, ho, ho!

'Tis the season I'm not playing any more Christmas songs, but I'm loving the 10-degree weather!

How many parties have we attended this year, and how many have we turned down?  I attended the SLU Glee Club Christmas party last night (thanks to Bing for inviting me), and laughed my a** off because of the antics of the kids, something that seems to me gets more and more humorous every year.

Last year I was with the UE Chorale who had their party at their conductor's (Anna Piquero's) house, and I still have the video of the most abominably comic presentations that made me roll off my seat, to the floor, to the neighbor's house and to the end of the street (okay that was an exaggeration!).  And I still keep the video very close to me, for fear that it may fall into the wrong hands and become a source of scandal online!

But whatever it is, the Christmas party for a choir, I believe, is the single-most important bonding activity that not only helps the voices blend together, but also helps build friendships for life.  Relationships are also rekindled, mended, renewed and given a new boost of excitement in anticipation of a productive new year.

Merry Christmas to Jojo, Mark, Robert, Anna, Bing, Kuya Ed, Kuya Boy, Sir Joel, Fidel, Jai, Masahiro, Tristan, Oscar, Malou, Luzvi, Stojan, Vytautas, Gintautas, Jonas, Javi, Luis and Luismi, Basilio, Zimfira, Oeystein, Dolf, Alain, and all their choirs.  If I happen to forget your name on this 6am morning, kindly call my attention and I will add you wth a big smile, and a note of apology :)

I also want to make special mention of some dear kids who are leaving the UV choir this year, we are lucky to have met and for our paths to have crossed even for just a brief moment in our lives.  Godspeed!

We just finished recording tonight a CD of ten Ave Maria songs by ten different composers: Balsamo, Bach, Caccini, Consolacion, Delgado, Mascagni, Pamintuan, Saint Saens, Santiago and Verdi. 

I played the piano for lyric soprano Kay Balajadia, whom I have worked with  since 1996 so the chemistry is there.  The atmosphere tonight was dynamic, and emotionally charged.  We tried different tonal colors in the treatment of the songs, and the result is up to you to judge :)

The CD will be out in Spring 2010, and will be available in the US and Canada at cdbaby.com, and elsewhere at amazon.com

You can send your pre-order to kgmb2005@gmail.com

Click here to listen to a sample recording of Verdi's Ave Maria from our rehearsal.  This is not the track in the actual CD.

Watch out for the world premiere of the musical on the Life of St. Louis Gonzaga.  Showing June 2011 in celebration of the centennial of the Saint Louis University, Baguio City

Yiruma is a Korean composer who writes new age music and I just love one of his compositions entitled Kiss the Rain.

The perfect sentimental music for today's gloomy weather

As the seminar came to a close yesterday, I cannot help but commend the hard work of the organization in fulfilling its mission towards education of choral directors.

Aside from uniting many musicians in the last two seminars that it organized, the Philippine Choral Directors' Association has also helped promote awareness of intellectual property rights, especially campaining against unlicensed copies of choral music.

This would be the greatest legacy of the organization in the Philippines, and hopefully in the coming years, more people will be further informed, inspired and educated.

See you at the National PCDA Convention in April!

Congratulations to Peter, and Bing for their success in the Finals of the Choir Category of the National Music Competition for Young Artists (NAMCYA)!

The quality of the performances in this year's competitions was very impressive, proving that the choral knowledge of the conductors in other Philippine regions is already at a very high level, and they could easily outperform groups from Manila.

Previous winners (not complete):

1980
1st – Ateneo de Manila College Glee Club (NCR)
2nd – The HIS Sounds (NCR)
3rd – Christ the King Choir (NCR)

1981
1st - MSU-Iligan Octava Chorale Society (Region XII)

1985
1st – West Negros College Glee Club (Region VI)
2nd – U.P. Singing Ambassadors (NCR)
3rd – Ateneo de Davao University Glee Club (Region XI)
Hon. Mention - Bicol Heritage Fdn. Inc. College Choir (Region V)

1987
1st – Bicol Heritage Foundation. Inc. College Choir (Region V)
2nd – Notre Dame University College Choir (Region XII)
3rd – Pagadian City College Choir (Region IX)

1990
1st – The Himig Singers (Region XI)
2nd – West Negros College Glee Club (Region VI)
3rd – UST Coro Tomasino (NCR)

1993
1st – The Himig Singers (Region XI)
2nd – Philippine Normal College Chorale (NCR)
3rd – PUC Ambassadors Chorale (Region IV)

1996
1st – Philippine Normal College Chorale (NCR)
2nd – Adventist University of the Phils. Chorale (Region IV)

1999
1st – The La Salle Chorale, Bacolod City (Region VI)
2nd – Philippine Women’s University Chorale (NCR)
3rd – University of Mindanao (Region XI)
Hon. Mention – University of the East Chorale (NCR)
Hon. Mention – Holy Trinity College Grand Chorale (Region IV)

2002
1st – San Beda College Chorale (NCR)
2nd - Imusicapella (Region IV)


2005
1st - Saint Louis University Glee Club (CAR)

2009
1st - University of Mindanao Chorale (Region XI)
2nd - Saint Louis University Glee Club (CAR)

祈り-あなたがいるから

You Were There is from the movie Dare mo mamotte kurenai and I just heard it on Youtube, performed by Libera with soloist Tom Cully.  The song is so beautiful, mostly because of its simplicity, and partly because of the beautiful voice of the soloist in the music video. 

We encourage you to join us in singing this song on Dec 13 2009 when we celebrate the World Day for Choral Singing (please respect copyright laws by singing for free and not commercially recording the song).  Also, kindly post a video on Youtube with the following details:

You Were There by Takatsugu Muramatsu
World Day for Choral Singing 2009
(Name of your Choir, and Director)
(Your country)

Let's do this so we can generate a new fan base for this artist, and promote his beautiful music.

Cheers!