The legacy of Ingrid Sala-Santamaria
Classical music in Cebu is alive and well, thanks mainly to Dr. Ingrid Sala-Santamaria and the Salvador and Pilar Sala Foundation (SPSF) which, in 1991, embarked on what seemed like an ambitious 10-year program: the training of musically gifted
Cebu youth in various music instruments in order to form the Cebu Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO).
The CYSO story is contained now in a book, The
CYSO Story 1991-2000. It is the third book that has chronicled Dr. Santamaria’s musical journey, the first one being
My Four Seasons, which is the story of her life from childhood to the concert pianist she has become. The second book, The Romantic Journey, details her 15-year musical tour with her mentor, the late Prof. Reynaldo Reyes; a tour, where the duo played music from the Romantic composers, for free, in over 500 venues all over the Philippines.
In her third book, Dr. Santamaria traces the beginnings of the CYSO which in 1991 when she, under the aegis of the Salvador and Pilar Sala Foundation, embarked on a 10year music training program for the musically gifted Cebu youth. It traces the growth of the orchestra from the first time it came out in public with the tentative strains of
Twinkle, Twinkle to the maturing orchestra’s various
performances not just in Cebu but also elsewhere, including the Malacañang. It also shares some details of performances by selected students in other countries, up to the orchestra’s final concert in October 2000, when the CYSO was renamed Peace Philharmonic Philippines (PPP).
The fourth and last book is Peace Philharmonic Philippines
2001-2016. Here, the activities of the PPP are chronicled. But the most interesting part of the book is when it looks into the teachers’ and scholars’ current projects here in Cebu and abroad.
Some of the graduates have opened music schools: Reynaldo Abellana’s Classic Orchestra Music Studio; Francis Balo with his Francis Balo Music Studio in Talamban, Cebu City; Francisco Cane with his Sir Cane Music Studio in Basak, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu; Hannah Magdadaro-Go with Virtuoso; Marc Hamlet Mercado with Violin Discovery Music Studio in LapuLapu; the multi-awarded choir conductor, flute scholar Dennis Sugarol with his Dennis Muzikhaus Studio in Mandaue City, Cebu; Chloe Canton Rice, with her own music studio in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA; Miracle Romano, with her family’s Romano Art and Music Studio in Dipolog; Norwena Belocura, an incorporator of the Music and Me studio, and Lianne Sala with Sistemang Filipino.
Others have gone to Metro Manila to play the instruments they learned: Joseph Brian Cimafranca, with the ABS CBN Philharmonic Orchestra and freelancing with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra; Sara Maria Gonzales with the Manila Symphony Orchestra; and Gerry Graham Gonzales, principal cellist of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra. Gone solo as a techno-violinist is Princess Christina Ybañez.
Some have gone abroad, and continue to play, some occasionally, and/or teach music like Joseph Patrick Balo with Holland America Lines and Fred Olsen Cruise Lines; Antoinette Gorgonia, Franz Lanzaderas, Regie Marie Parajes in Brunei; Lemuel Rey and Lemuel Bryce Lecciones in Australia; Catherine, Ingrid and Janice Magallon in New Zealand; Lorgina Tubod Duran in New Orleans, Louisiana; Gerry Varona who plays viola in the Orquestra Filarmonica de Minas Gerais in Brazil; Aristeo Solares in Singapore; Redempto Verdida in Cambodia; Peter Martin Alvarez, a UN employee, with the United Nations Orchestra in New York; Maila Detchie Deloso Jumaoas in Indonesia; and Omar Batanagas in Tokyo, Japan.
Others are with the teaching staff of their fellow- CYSO graduates who have opened music schools while others are filling the music faculty needs in the city and province of Cebu. Some are with choir groups like Fr. Benedicto Tan who is music director of the Church Clergy Choir, or are into composing and/or music arranging like Niño James Banares, Emmanuel Abellana and Sugarol.
It is truly a bountiful music harvest that Dr. Santamaria and the Salvador and Pilar Sala Foundation have gifted Cebu and the world with; and the books The CYSO Story and Peace Philharmonic Philippines are a lasting memento of that harvest, and of Dr. Santamaria’s and the Sala Foundation’s quest for a lasting music legacy in honor of Pilar Blanco Sala, Dr. Santamaria’s mother and first piano mentor.