Cecile Licad: Funny, witty, lovable non-diva in pajamas
She wears no makeup, no fancy cat eyeglasses with rhinestones. She doesn’t even sport the attitude of a spoiled diva. So who is the internationally acclaimed and multi-awarded Cecile Licad outside the piano concert stage? She is actually a jolly, witty, funny,
humble and refreshingly honest person. She talks about her “weird” childhood, a Madonna concert experience, wardrobe malfunction incidents a la J Lo and her everyday pajama look.
Imagine a slender woman with uncombed long hair (yes, she woke up like that) sitting before the piano, learning her notes eight hours a day in her pajamas. Add an ubiquitous cigarette stick on a nearby ashtray and you get the picture.
“Sometimes people think that just because you’re well-known, you are wealthy and lead a glamorous life,” Licad says in her signature sexy, raspy voice, her fingers scratching her head when she stresses a point. “Is there anything glamorous about wearing pajamas all day?” she laughs.
“I’m just like any person doing serious work, like a carpenter building a structure. It’s not about ego. It’s not all about me. It’s about passion and lifting the human spirit,” she adds.
“Music kinda possesses me. It transforms me into a crazy bitch when I am looking for something else, something deeper in the music. It makes me happy, but it can also make me sad, depending on the mood of the music.
“I’m basically a slave of what I’m doing. I’ve always been a slave since I was a kid. My childhood was a weird one. My piano was my best friend. I’ve had no social life since I was a kid,” she laughs. But it’s a life that makes her happy and fulfilled.
She started learning the piano when she was three under the tutelage of her mother and the strict disciplinary guidance of her father. By the age of five, she was playing and at seven she had her first concert with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra. At 19, she won the Leventritt Gold Medal, and the rest is a glittering history of performing with the best in the concert halls of Europe and America.
The first thing you notice is that she has beautiful long, slender fingers. “I was luckily born with flexible fingers that I can shape into a boat, like a rubber band. You have to be an athlete when you’re a pianist. Your fingers have to be soft and graceful yet tough, strong and agile.”
Licad works hard – she doesn’t stop practising until she gets something the way she wants it. “I want to create the music as freely as I can, and do what I want to do at that moment.”
Lately, however, she has been influenced by her 30-yearold son Otavio Meneses. “He kinda opened me up to be more relaxed about stuff and not to worry too much.”
Otavio once brought his mom to a concert of Madonna. It was a unique treat for this mother so used to listening to classics, she was advised by her son: just wear earplugs!
As to Licad’s own memorable concerts, there have been too many, but she does remember “the silly stuff.”
At a concert with conductor Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Licad, then 21, was wearing a lovely Pitoy Moreno gown and because “I was a little bit heavy that time, a button popped out of my belt which was too tight. The conductor caught it just as I played the last note!”
At another concert where she was playing Mozart, “the zipper of my gown was going down because it wasn’t hooked properly. So I had to play with my shoulder at a certain angle to hold the zipper up.”
These two incidents of wardrobe malfunction, almost a la J Lo, have taught her a lesson: wear a comfortable gown to a concert.
Tonight when she plays Chopin at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Theater, Licad will wear a Tadashi Shoji gown in sapphire blue to mark the 65th anniversary of Rustan’s which is presenting the concert under the aegis of Nedy Tantoco, who is one of the few Philippine culture stalwarts keeping the opera and classical concert scene alive in the country today.
Tantoco, a CCP board member and president of the Philippine-Italian Association, is presenting the concert for the benefit of the San Pablo Apostol Parish Church in Tondo under the stewardship of Italian priest Fr. Carlo Brittante of the Canosian Sons of Charity.
“Licad reunites with maestro Olivier Ochanine and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra which will play Genoveva’s Overture,” says Tantoco.
It was her “Tita“Nedy who convinced her to do two Chopin concertos, and Licad gladly accepted the challenge.
“Of course, yes, because I feel a connection to Chopin whose works I’ve played since I was a kid. His works are very challenging, they demand a certain virtuosity. There’s something mysterious about Chopin. His works are harder to perform compared to those of Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky,” explains Licad.