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ENCUENTRO FILIPINO
The 2008 USA Concert-Conference Tour of the Loboc Children's Choir
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The last five years of the Loboc Children's Choir (LCC) has reaped tremendous impact on the Province of Bohol. Ever since the group has earned national and international laurels, most especial of which has been winning first place in the Barcelona competition in 2003, the choir has been a major focus inot only in the ecological-cultural tourism of Bohol, but has been a driver in fomenting international diplomacy for the province. Most recently, the Provincial Government inked an international sisterhood agreement with a Chinese province in the mainland and this was started by a concert in Shanghai.
The choir through the Loboc Socio-Cultural Multipurpose Cooperative (LSCMPC) is currently involved in two important projects: (a) A scholarship program which will provide grants for deserving LCC graduates who would decide to pursue a musical career and (b) Participation in the rehabilitation and restoration campaign for the Loboc Church and Convent Complex.
(a) The LCC still envisions the establishing a School of Music in Loboc. Given that music is the most salient and pronounced asset of the Loboc community, and believing that this resource can truly be an engine for development in the town, the group in partnership with the local government, business, and other civil society sectors, are focusing on intensifying efforts towards making a community-based creative industry out of Loboc's musical heritage resources. The Municipal Governemnt of Loboc is now behind the professionalization of a town band composed of young Lobocanons, envisioned to provide additional income to the musicians but also to boost local cultural tourism. The LSCMPC is also bent on identifying specially talented alumni/alumnae of the LCC, who would want to pursue specialized degrees in singing, conducting, composing, instrumental playing or music education. This will surely foster the growth of a new successor generation of accomplished musicians who will serve as a distinguished faculty for the much needed Bohol School of Music. Currently, two young graduates of the LCC are in Manila: Noel Caneda taking up voice and conducting at the UST Conservatory of Music, and is a full Dean tuition scholar and Warlo Caliupusan, taking up piano at St. Scholastica's Conservatory of Music. However, they need regular support for their daily and monthly needs in Manila (transport, board, lodging, books, miscellaneous, etc.) The LCC has other deserving graduates who are so passionately interested in taking up music for college, but are financially strapped.
(b) The Church and Convent of Loboc was declared a National Treasure and a National Landmark by the combined group of national cultural agencies (NHI, NCCA, National Museum). Like any heritage landmark, the declaration expects that the concerted efforts of the heritage community would continually safeguard and protect the site through various activities in heritage protection, rehabilitation, or restoration. The convent has been a regular training and performance base of the LCC. The choir in return has been one of the most significant force in strengthening the evangelical and cultural mission of the Church by providing very regularly the musical requirements of the sacred liturgy. After the NCCA has furnished the community with its Structural Assessment report on the complex, the community is called upon to contribute in the restoration efforts of the site. The LCC has pledged its support and contribution to aid in this campaign. To sing for the protection of the House of God is one of its most cherished goals.
(c) One of the important goals of the LSCMPC and the LCC is the revitalization of Loboc's musical heritage through the establishment of TUBURAN, a comprehensive program on the research, documentation , and revival of the musical legacy of Loboc. Major activities would include recording of the unique music of Loboc, documentation of its musical leaders and their histories, notation of music from the maestros' memory in the light of the loss and absence of musical scores, performance of key works popular in Loboc in the 19th and 20th centuries, and training of the youth in all the identified musical heritage forms of the town. This needs a lot of resources and expertise.
All of these needs could not be addressed by incomes derived from concerts in the municipality. The children are regularly in school and could only be tapped for concerts to fund-raise for these causes during their vacation periods. Already, summer breaks in the last two years had been successfully utilized for these purposes.
One major strategy has been looming in the minds and hearts of the LCC leaders: that of doing a fund-raising tour in Boholano communities in the USA. This has been proven effective during the first US tour in 1996, and in the European tour in 2003. The Boholano and Filipino communities in the USA number in thousands and have expressed a lot of interest in hosting the LCC again for the purposes described above. There are about 20 Boholano organizations in about 15 of the American states who are ready and willing to help in this fund-raising endeavor, especially that they had witnessed in the last ten years or so whenever they would come for vacations in Bohol the growing importance of the LCC not just to the province but for the entire country. Letters to this effect will be emailed in the soonest possible time. The following are the identified Bohol organizations and other contacts tapped to host the choir:
| Seattle | Bohol Organization in Seattle
Parishes run by Boholano priests |
| San Francisco | Tagbilaran Association in Northern California |
| San Jose | Filipino Association in San Jose |
| Los Angeles | Loboc Association in Los Angeles
Tagbilaran Association in LA
Filipino Associations in San Clemente, San Diego, and Las Vegas |
| New York | TBTK Tigum Bol-anon sa Tibuok Kalibutan
(International Reunion of Boholanos from All Over the World)
Parishes run by Boholano priests |
| Washington DC | Boholano Groups in Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland |
| Florida | Boholano Association in Tampa |
| Houston | Boholano Association in Texas |
| Chicago | Bohol Association in Illinois |
(d) In the last two years, as a result of the program on heritage awareness launched by the Diocesan Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church of the Diocese of Tagbilaran and the Bohol Arts and Cultural Heritage Council, interest in Bohol's heritage arts, especially sacred music, had increased among music and academic circles not just nationally but also internationally. The resurrection of masses, songs, hymns, community folk music, popular during the Soanish period and early into the 20th century had become subject of research, revival, and performance. The fabled Misa Baclayana premiered for the first time after almost 100 years was one touchstone project.
Eminent heritage musicologist Dr. William Summers of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in the past seven years had visited the Philippines, especially Bohol, and is a known scholar in the evolving discoveries of music created in the former colonies of Spain. He had joined together with Fr. Ted Torralba of Bohol a team of heritage scholars in a scientific process of unearthing the layers of cultural creation as a result of the interaction between Spain and the Philippines. In 2006, he had started to promote the organizing of ENCUENTRO FILIPINO, a conference of heritage scholars that will throw light on this cultural phenomenon. He has managed to convince the musicology departments of the University of California in Riverside, Los Angeles and Darmouth College in New Hampshire to set up a international seminar inviting key resource persons from the Philippines and deliver papers on important topics related to the Filipno-Spanish encounter. These resource persons with their topics are:
Rev. Milan Ted Torralba
"Cultural Heritage Recovery: The Historic and Contemporary Struggle to Maintain 350 Years Of A Legacy."
Elena Rivera Mirano
"Reconstructing the Music of Marcelo Adonay: A Case Study."
MA. ALEXANDRA IŅIGO CHUA
"THE MONASTERIO DE SANTA CLARA MUSIC BOOKS: WOMEN AND MUSIC AT THE HEART OF 19TH CENTURY MANILA."
Ma. Patricia Silvestre Brilliantes
"Reliving the Journeys of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage:
The Value of Spanish Historical Sources in Philippine Music History."
Regalado Trota José
"Imaging Our Lady In 16th-Century Manila: Nuestra Seņora del Rosario de la Naval."
Ma. Patricia Silvestre Brilliantes
"Music in the Heart of Manila: Quiapo From the Colonial Period to Contemporary Times, Cultural Changes and Continuities."
Regalado Trota José
"In Search of Bell-Casters and Foundries in Spanish Colonial Philippines."
Rev. Milan Ted Torralba
"Making Cultural Heritage Alive In Contemporary Philippine Culture."
MA. ALEXANDRA IŅIGO CHUA
"READING CHOIRBOOKS AND TRANSLATING MUSICAL TRADITIONS: EXPLORATIONS ON THE MUSICAL MONTAGE OF 19TH CENTURY BOHOL, PHILIPPINES."
Elena Rivera Mirano
"Subli: On the use of Multidisciplinary methods in Musicology."
Even from the very beginning Dr. Summers and the panel had been unanimous that the Loboc Children's Choir would be the best group to demonstrate the examples that will be described in the papers of the conference. Thus when the group heard of the LCC's plan to visit the USA for their scholarship and restoration programs, they had hoped that the choir can maximize their visit by appearing in the conference as well. The LCC and the LSCMPC find this opportunity to demonstrate the values of the Filipino-Spanish interaction through music a significant gesture and contribution in bolstering international research, enriching knowledge in international musicology, and modeling unique cultural phenomena borne from intercultural and interracial synergies. This could be a new re-reading of the history of colonialization from the usual paradigm of liberational struggles to a new vista of birthing new creativities from the synergy of cultures.
Thus with all these in mind, the need to advocate programs for sustainability (scholarships for successor generations and resource mobilization for heritage restoration) and to be an excellent demonstrator of vanishing treasures of a recent civilization has been the impetus for the Loboc Children's Choir to spread their angels' wings anew and sing their dreams once more in distant shores.
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