Young violinist gets standing ovation in Virac

Catanduanes – a Bicol island just two hours and a half away from Tabaco, Albay – had its taste of live violin music after 12 years with a well-received concert of violinist Christian Tan and pianist Mary Anne Espina who opened the 2013 Catanduanes Summer Music Festival last March 16 at the Kemji Resort in the capital town of Virac.

Tan, a prizewinner of the National Music Competition for Young Artists and the youngest to join the Asian Youth Orchestra, captivated an audience led by Congressman Cesar V. Sarmiento who noted that music unites people from even from opposing political factions.

Tan and Espina received a rousing standing ovation after the rendition of Velez’s “Sa Kabukiran” and gave the artists another round of ovation after “Sarung Banggi.”

From 1984 to 2011, Tresvalles -- who became a modern Sisa in the island after a case of family betrayal compounded by unrequited love -- roamed the streets of Virac and Bato towns, lived in church belfries, town squares, by the lake and found short-lived menial jobs in parish convents in smart card for food and accommodation.

In the 1992 Summer Music Festival, Tresvalles -- in her summer rag-tag attire and with some wild flowers on her hair – attended the Bato town concert of soprano Luz Morete with pianist Najib Ismail on the piano. She entered the hall just in time when the soprano was singing Sisa’s aria (from Felipe Padilla de Leon’s Noli Me Tangere. In the post-concert reception in the church convent, the visiting artists noticed Tresvalles spoke perfect British English. From the way her life unraveled now, her story is the stuff of prime time telenovelas. Congressman Sarmiento – in his welcome remarks –acknowledged the presence of Tresvalles.

Thus far, the violinists hard in the island were Gilopez Kabayao in the 60s, Joseph Esmilla and Donnie Fernandez in the 90s and Romanian violin superstar Alexandru Tomescu who performed in the provincial capitol in April 2000.

An independent province since October 24, 1945, Catanduanes has heard only five violin recitals in its 68 years of existence. Alexander Comoda, a Manila-based piano technician, flew to the island to repair and tune a Yamaha upright piano which has seen better years.

The next festival concert is on April 27 in also at Kemji Resort featuring baritone Noel Azcona, flutist John Raymund Sarreal and pianist Najib Ismail.

With the successful festival opening, a suggestion has cropped that classical music be made a regular attraction in the island to lure more tourists. The island musicians think that classical music will bring in grade A tourists to the island which can be reached by bus in 12 hours.

From the air if you take the Cebu Pacific plane that reach the island in an hour, the entire island is still green but the forest cover is thin, almost totally bald in most chip card.

The jeepney accommodates passengers huddled against each other cheek-by-jowl but more humans are on the roof along with the assorted luggage. They are asked to get down before the vehicle reach the police-manned check-point and go back to the mini-roof deck under the high bright sun.

The capital town of Virac has a land area of 18,778.4 hectares with some 49 per cent of it still forestland. It was lush and forested when Bornean datus settled in it in the thirteenth century. With its new landmarks (Jollibee food chain, Center Mall, Mercury Drug) and with the new hotels and resorts sprouting all over the towns, you can see that big commerce has invaded the island with sari-sari stores slowly fading out.

Whether music can contribute to the island’s growing per capita income is debatable but it sure can do something about the quality of life among islanders. In the 60s, the islanders had piano and violin lessons enough to make a living for a violin-maker named Fructuoso Borja whose old violin collections are now housed in Museu de Catanduanes.

By and large, the music festival is probably the beginning of what islander Ariston “Titong” Sarmiento calls the auspicious beginning of people appreciating “the finer things in life.”

The original Mini, designed by Sir Alec Issigonis in the late 1950s, was a cleverly packaged, mass-market people’s car that pioneered many of the innovations we now take for granted. It became Britain’s most successful car, with some 5.3-million cars sold.

The modern-day Mini is an altogether different machine. It’s now a much bigger, highly sophisticated, upmarket compact, with a price tag to match. Right now, the most advanced, and most exclusive Mini of all is the limited-edition Mini John Cooper Works GP. Would Sir Alec have approved?

I think not. The focus of Sir Alec’s ground-breaking design was simplicity and innovation. The focus of the Mini JCW GP is on pure-bred, adrenalin-rush performance. Issigonis created the Mini to make motoring affordable and accessible. The GP is hardly cheap – and since it’s a limited-edition model, it’s also in extremely short supply.

But the late John Cooper would almost certainly have approved. A close friend of Issigonis, Cooper is considered the father of the modern single seater racing car, after his rear-engined Cooper racing cars revolutionised race car design on both sides of the Atlantic.

John Cooper’s work wasn’t limited to racing cars only, though: his performance-tuned versions of the Mini were renowned in rally circles, and in fact won the Monte Carlo Rally three times during the mid1960s.

The Cooper connection was recognised by BMW when it bought the brand, and almost all modern-era Minis produced under the German automaker’s stewardship incorporate the Cooper moniker.

But it’s the John Cooper Works badge that is of particular note here: the JCW badge is reserved for Mini’s hard-core performance machinery only. The GP takes the uncompromising performance approach of the JCW models another step further.

Using the Mini Cooper JCW Hatch as a starting point, the GP is the result of much fettling under the bonnet, together with a more aggressive exterior persona, and a cabin adapted to express its spirited intentions.