TWO STUDENTS from the Conservatory of Music made it to the new batch of Original Pilipino Performing Arts (OPPA) Foundation scholars for Academic Year 2019-2020.
OPPA Foundation’s latest scholarship recipients include Vanessa Ellaiza Jean Celestial, who is taking up her master’s degree and majoring in trombone, and Mica Mille Becerro, a freshman in performance, major in voice.
Celestial won the grand prize in the National Music Competitions for Young Artists Foundation, Inc. Trombone Category C back in 2015, and received the Benavides award the same year.
Becerro was one of the grand finalists of the television contest “The Voice Teens” in 2017.
“I wanted formal training in music to dig deeper and explore its beauty, to be able to finish college, to share my talent, to inspire young artists and to be able to represent Philippines internationally someday,” Becerro told the Varsitarian in a text message.
Thirteen other students from the Conservatory of Music are current OPPA scholars.
OPPA Foundation, founded by real estate magnate Andrew Tan in 2015, gives scholarship grants to artists in fields such as production design, dance, voice, scriptwriting and acting. M.J.T.L. Nepomuceno
