The UST Symphony Orchestra treated music lovers to a night of classical music with a little help from renowned pianist and pedagogue Fr. Manuel Maramba, OSB in the concert, “Universal Space and Time: A Musical Journey,” last Oct. 2 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).
The concert opened with the UST Symphony Orchestra’s rendition of Italian composer Amilcare Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” from Ponchielli’s 1880 opera, “La Gioconda.”
The UST Symphony Orchestra treated music lovers to a night of classical music with a little help from renowned pianist and pedagogue Fr. Manuel Maramba, OSB in the concert, “Universal Space and Time: A Musical Journey,” last Oct. 2 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).
The concert opened with the UST Symphony Orchestra’s rendition of Italian composer Amilcare Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” from Ponchielli’s 1880 opera, “La Gioconda.”
For the second piece, Maramba then accompanied the UST Symphony Orchestra in playing Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s three-movement Piano concerto No. 20 in D Minor K 466. It started with the pulsing rhythm of Allegro in D Minor followed by the flamboyant melody of Romanze in B-flat Major. The movement ended with the fast tempo of Allegro Assai in D Minor ending in D Major.
The UST Symphony Orchestra was conducted by UST Conservatory faculty member Jeffrey Solares, who is also the executive director of the Manila Symphony Orchestra, Asia’s oldest orchestra.
It ended the concert with English composer Gustav Holst’s seven-movement orchestral suite, “The Planets.” It is a famous orchestral suite structured by the movements of the first seven planets in the Solar System excluding Earth.
Solares said “The Planets” was the toughest and longest work he had ever conducted.
“Everyone from the winds section to the strings, brass and percussions, had to get involved in this piece because of its complexity,” Solares told the Varsitarian.
Conservatory of Music’s Coro Tomasino, led by Voice Department faculty member Ronan Ferrer, rendered a double chorus of women’s voices on one high note on the seventh suite movement, which played out constantly as it faded to the end of the suite.
The concert was titled “Universal Space and Time: A Musical Journey” in accordance with the piece performed by the orchestra as the ending piece.
Octogenarian virtuoso
Now 80, Benedictan monk-musician Maramba is still active in creating new music. He is a retired faculty member of the Conservatory of Music.
At the tender age of 11, Maramba gave his first public performance at the Bamboo Organ in Las Piñas City. At 14, he became the official accompanist of the Las Piñas Boys Choir.
He finished his Bachelor of Music Degree in Piano at the UST Conservatory of Music followed by a Bachelor of Music in Composition at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, obtaining his master’s degree and Teacher’s Certificate in Theory. In the same year he was invited to perform at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York.
He also earned the Master of Musical Arts in Performance degree at the Yale University School of Music.
Maramba reorganized the orchestra, which later on became the resident company of CCP, in 1988 after a 20-year hiatus. In 2014, his Diamond Jubilee celebration was feted in that year’s Tribute to the Thomasians where he performed “Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54” by Robert Schumann.
Maramba is known for composing three operas namely, “Lord Takayama Ukon,” “Abal Sto. Niño” and “La Naval.” He established the Annual Summer Music Camp and Music Festival under the reigh of Dean Alejandra Atabug. Audrie Julienne D. Bernas
