The New Year

   In 51 hours, I will be standing in front of a new class of freshmen music majors, starting my third year of teaching.

   In a week, I'll be doing the same for my very own preschool advisory class. The familiar faces of my old high school/ grade school students will greet me as I walk down the hallway, only they will be much much taller after only two months of summer! And I will be shocked at how some of them will have to peer down to speak to me.

   Ask any teacher, and they'll tell you that for them, the New Year starts not in January, but in June. There is that powerful sense of expectation, of rebirth, of regeneration... and it comes not with the fireworks and half-devoured quezo de bolas, but with the smell of freshly sharpened pencils, the crackling sound of brand new notebooks and textbooks, the echo of students' laughter in the hallway. For the UP College of Music, it starts with the strains of Westlife, The Corrs and Alicia Keys heard in the corridor, outside the classrooms where students congregate, jamming to non-classical music while waiting for their professor to meet them for the first time (the chance of which is something like 1 is to 4, haha!).

   I look back on the past two months of easier living, on the mornings where I had time to savor my cup of (decaf) coffee while listening to Mozart or Renaissance polyphonic music on YouTube, and am glad.

    In the 10 months to come, I shall say goodbye to one hour more of sleep, one more novel read during weekends... but shall have the ineffable joy of interacting with hearts and minds so different from my own, which shall become as dear as my own... and truly, no amount of R&R can compete with that.  :)

    Ah... the life of a Teacher. There is nothing quite like it!

Call for Scholarship Applicants

Sometimes, all it takes is a helping hand given at the right moment. One semester can make the difference between a student continuing and eventually finishing his studies at UP, or stopping his schooling in order to work. The trouble with the latter is that they rarely get the chance to complete them.

It is because of this that our NGO, Ex Libris Philippines, organized our "Concert For A Cause" fundraising activity last May 21, 2010. We're now looking for beneficiaries for our scholarship project. We seek undergraduate students who need financial assistance to continue their studies at the University of the Philippines for the first semester of A.Y. '10-'11. (Partial and complete scholarship grants for one semester will be granted based on the applicant's need)

 
Do you know of any deserving U.P. student of good moral and intellectual standing (preferably no INC's or 5's, with a GWA of 2.00 or higher), who REALLY NEEDS this one semester tuition fee grant? If you do, please send their contact information and any other pertinent info (e.g. references, mini bios) to Gabriela Francisco  gabitwin@gmail.com (09209470835) or Tata Francisco teachertata@gmail.com (09209470861) (or any other Ex Libris Philippines member you know). 
 
Thank you so much! Please reply if you know someone---anyone---an orgmate, collegemate, friend, or classmate. A UP student who you think is deserving, and who really needs the financial aid. Just a name (or several names!) and contact number/s will do---and of course, a few sentences (personal recommendation) will be a great help. Please forward this to your teachers/students, family and friends; perhaps they may know of people who need this scholarship. Thank you so much!
 
For more information about Ex Libris Philippines, please go to http://exlibrisphilippines.multiply.com

 

 

For interested applicants, please submit the following:
   

   4 pcs. 1x1 ID picture
   Copy of parents' most recent ITR
   Copy of TCG (a CRS printout of grades will do)
   3-4 names (with complete contact info) for references

Replugging: Concert For A Cause

(Please click on the poster to enlarge)

Book-lovers and world-class musicians...

Uniting for a great cause.

May 21, 2010, Friday

6:00 p.m.

Abelardo Hall, UP College of Music

See you there!!! :)

Repost: An Appeal for Support

We are Lester Pascua’s friends.

We come together to give a voice to his story.

Five unknown men, brandishing baseball bats and hidden by masks, viciously attacked our friend, Lester, in Katipunan at the night of April 29. As our friend Lester was walking to buy dinner, these men mercilessly, and without any provocation, attacked him. They ganged up on him and beat him to a pulp. As if their treachery and brutality was never enough, they soon drove off in a silver Vios (plate number ZMD 300) to escape.

As his friends, we continue to receive persistent reports that this crime was a fraternity-related hit gone wrong. Knowing that our friend Lester was never a fraternity member in UP, and had no known enemies, only heightens our suspicions that this was a case of mistaken identity. In our eyes, Lester was an innocent person caught up in a senseless act of vendetta.

Even as we still piece together what really happened in this case, and we trust our authorities in their investigation, we still condemn – in the strongest terms – this barbaric act. If it was indeed true that this was a fraternity hit, these men who attacked him are no different from criminals. These criminals, whoever they are, must not go unpunished.

We are angry that these things can actually happen in our streets. We are indignant that these hoodlums think that they can get away with their crimes. Nonetheless, we are united by our demand to exact justice.

As Lester’s friends, we come together as one to bring attention to his case, and never stop until the criminals who have done this to him are punished.

If you believe in what we stand for, please repost this note and tag your friends.

LET US SHOW THESE CRIMINALS THAT WE DON'T TAKE THIS SITTING DOWN.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/SAWA-NA-KAMI-SA-FRAT-RELATED-VIOLENCE/116241481744011?ref=nf

Kodaly 2010

(see my Kodaly 2008 blog entry here)

   

(From left to right: Doris Maddaford, Jean Ting, Ma'am Lilymae Montano, Joyce Tan, Sir Laszlo Nemes, Ma'am Daisy Marasigan, myself, Krystl Buesa and Herbert Yonathan)

     Each year, the Kodaly Society of the Philippines holds an intensive two week course on the Kodaly method of teaching music, with Conducting and Musicianship classes as well as Methods, Materials, Practicum, and "extras" like Philippine Music, Asian Music, Vocal Techniques and Recorder classes. The lecturers come from the UP College of Music and the Ateneo, and while they are all excellent, the teacher who contributes most to the course's effectivity is our beloved Hungarian mentor, Dr. Laszlo Norbert Nemes. (Hungary is renowned for its excellent music education system. How excellent? Well, their high school students transcribe Bach fugues for dictation. And their children's choir can sight read Bartok choral pieces.)

      I have been fortunate enough to benefit from the mentorship of many excellent teachers during my undergrad years, but Sir Laszlo is altogether in another dimension!! Never has there been such a personification of excellent musicianship, gentility of soul, good humor and a generous, loving nature! Discounting the fact that my solfege/dictation skills have greatly improved under his tutelage, he has also taught me much by his example of kindness and humility. He is, quite simply, a teacher's teacher.

     Forgive me, none of my raving can do justice to such a wonderful human being as Sir Laszlo. Being his student in Musicianship and Conducting for the past few weeks has been, quite simply, the best two weeks of my life, both as a musician and as a teacher.

     It's quite humbling to realize just how far I still have to go in terms of Musicianship, but it did a world of good for me and my classmates (among them was Ma'am Isay Pineda, who was my former Theory teacher during my undergrad).

      I will always remember the early morning Musicianship classes where we sight-read and harmonically analyzed excerpts from Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro." We also had excerpts for dictation. What bliss!!

      And who can forget the joy of singing in a choir composed of some of the most beautiful voices our country has to offer? We did William Byrd's "Haec Dies," Zoltan Kodaly's "See the Gypsy Munching Cheese," Franz Schubert's "Salve Regina," and for our Conducting class we did Thomas Morley's "April Is In My Mistress' Face," Orlando Gibbon's "Almighty and Everlasting God," Edward Elgar's "As Torrents In Summer" and Benjamin Britten's "Deo Gracias" from A Ceremony of Carols.  All sublime masterpieces!

     I heartily recommend this two week course to all musicians, conductors, and music teachers. It is quite intense, as there is a great deal of homework to accomplish. But the rewards are well worth the sleepless nights and stressful days. :) No matter how stressful things got, I always woke up with a smile on my face, ready and eager to face Sir Laszlo with the Mozart arias memorized in solfa syllables. And I'm armed with a wealth of pedagogical techniques and lesson plans.

     The Kodaly method is, I believe, the most effective one there is. Singapore is already getting Dr. Laszlo to train its teachers, they will be implementing the Kodaly method in their education system very soon. I wish the same would happen in the Philippines. 

     What attracted me to Kodaly was the philosophy behind the system, which is very patriotic (use of the finest folk songs, use of the Mother Tongue, etc.). Upon further study, I am convinced that its emphasis on the voice as the primary instrument, its use of relative do solfa (compared to fixed do solfa), and its developmentally appropriate teaching sequence is superior to others. What's even more nice about Kodaly is the fact that it can appropriate elements of other methods, like Dalcroze.

     But I digress. Back to the main topic of my blog entry: Sir Laszlo.

     During the lunch break on our last day (which is known as The Day of Important Conversations, because it's the only day that we course participants are no longer cramming our homework, hehe), Sir Laszlo spoke to my batchmate Joyce and I. He truly believes that the best music teacher is someone whose level of musicianship is that of a performer. Food for thought!!

      Tomorrow, I go back to my workplace, to my summer students, recharged and re-energized with the burning desire to share my newfound knowledge. I can hardly wait!! :)

A story of a Father's love, and an unfathomable circumstance and choice

Must. Watch. NOW.

We had this for our dictation exercise during Musicianship class this morning with our beloved Hungarian teacher, Dr. Laszlo Nemes :) What bliss!?!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2yrDWEoCpc&feature=related