My brothers informed me about this fund raiser when I informed them of my plans to be in Manila in August. Yes, I agreed.

Sponsored by the St. Scholastica's Music Alumni Association to fund the acquisition of an acoustic shell for St. Cecilia's Hall, this was scheduled for August 23, 2002 at St. Cecilia's Hall.

Th programme consisted of Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein, arranged by John Musto, and Three Tangos of Astor Piazzolla.

Nena del Rosario		Reynaldo Reyes
Greg & Yvette with Mom's classmate, Mrs. Araceli Fuentes and Miss Marquez, a high school teacher	Elsa, Obi, Amalie, Meiling and I converged at the Balcony to enjoy the great acoustics and probably reminisced our days of recitals and plays, while we roamed the wings of the Hall in the 1950's and 1960's	View of the Balcony

I applaud Sr. Placid's activities in establishing the music scholarships for talented youth. This brings back St. Scho's premier role in music education in the Philippines. The late Sr. Baptista Battig initiated classical music education in this country in 1907, and she nurtured the musical pioneers that became the teachers of our world renowned musicians including Cecile Licad's mom, King Kasilag, Pilar Blanco-Sala of Battig Music School in Cebu (and Ingrid Sala-Santamaria's mom), Blanca Castillo-Dinglasan, international pianist Leonor Kilayco, and many more, including our dear Sonia Mallari, Luchi Paner and Cora Hernandez. My mom's (MTD, 1937) dream was to become a concert pianist (she was, before the war); but Sr. Baptista always reminded her, "No, Sergia, your generation will be the teachers of the concert pianists of the future." How very prophetic. My mom was her student from grade 1, but you see, talent skips a generation.

If I remember correctly, Sr. Baptista was a student in Lizst's school. Lizst was a bida in this movie "Impromptu" (a story of Chopin's affair with George Sand) where I discovered Hugh Grant who played Chopin.

When we were in SSC, SSC ranked second to the UP Conservatory in the public consciousness. UP then produced the likes of Ryan Cayabyab (who naman married a Scholastican), but I'm sure the professors had their roots in Sr. Battig's early education classes (I'm guessing here).

I had seen the chair-less St. Cecilia's during my 1998 visit, and this time I enjoyed the elevated Balcony in its full glory. The acoustics is better than in the 1960's, thanks to our Elsa's Obi and Co., for bringing it to present excellence.

Amalie, Meiling, Elsa, Obi and I enjoyed the Balcony (we had the more expensive tickets downstairs kasi nga, we are the Kulasa fogies now), because this was our home and we could sit where we damned well pleased. It was a good decision.

The music was modern pop (an interpretation of the West Side Story) and a suite of modern music. No long-hair classical music. The West Side Story was very syncopated and a-tonal, and some of us would have preferred the classical music of our piano-playing past. We played the Baldwin and the Steinway (for two-piano pieces) in the 1950's. Recognizing that we once played here (or acted on the same stage) gave us butterflies and I can still smell the dusty backstage and curtains of the past!

The Hall is now airconditioned and it rained and reflected the droning sound, I loved it. Kulang lang ang "balut!" that we used to hear between concerto movements. OLE!!!

After the show, we hied off to Rastro for some tapas, and name-dropped Doreen's name. The chef, Chef Ed Quimson(?!) added a delicious favada, Doreen's fave, to our fare, and saw us off at the end of this evening.