RENOWNED Thomasian pianist Prof. Raul Sunico brought three rare Filipino concertos back to the stage in “Gabi ng Piyano,” a concert that featured the Manila Symphony Orchestra on Feb. 6 at the Metropolitan Theater.
The music event reintroduced compositions by great Filipino musicians Lucino Sacramento, Alfredo Buenaventura, and Francisco Santiago, allowing audiences to hear them again after years of obscurity.
“Gabi ng Piyano” opened with Sacramento’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Maharlika, a piece commissioned by former first lady Imelda Marcos for the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s birthday.
Imelda, who attended the concert, first heard Sunico perform the piece when he was 25, later offered him a scholarship at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York through the Young Artists Foundation of the Philippines.
Sunico and the Manila Symphony Orchestra also performed Piano Concerto No. 1, Celebration, a composition by Buenaventura, whose manuscript had been lost but was reconstructed by the Musika Pilipinas Research Program.
The Musika Pilipinas project, now in its third and final year, is implemented by the UST Research Center for Culture, Arts, and the Humanities, with funding from the National Research Council of the Philippines.
“Its magic remains elusive. No recording exists today. To hear it performed live, especially in the presence of the composer himself, is to witness a rare offering of sound and spirit, a fleeting moment of musical transcendence,” said Prof. Maria Alexandra Chua, Musika Pilipinas project lead and UST Conservatory dean.
Capping the concert was Santiago’s Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor, first performed on Feb. 5, 1925, exactly 100 years before the “Gabi ng Piyano” performance.
Lost during the Battle of Manila at the end of World War II, the composition was reconstructed using notes by Santiago’s student, Juan Bañez, with assistance from Col. Antonino Buenaventura. The piece was performed throughout the 1950s before fading into obscurity until its rediscovery in 2021.
“History could be infused into the human heart of our national identity. Yet, much of it remains unexplored, underperformed, or inaccessible to wider audiences,” Chua said in her opening remarks.
“May this concert serve as both a tribute and a call to action, a reminder that our music is a living legacy — one that we must continue to reclaim, perform, and pass on to future generations,” she added.
The performance also featured UST Conservatory faculty members Assoc. Prof. Herminigildo Ranera and Jeffrey Solares.
The concert was produced by Musika Pilipinas, an interdisciplinary study conducted to guide the government in crafting policies related to growing the music industry in the country. Divine P. de los Reyes
