“Come as you are, as you were.” Nirvana’s lyric seems a better conduct and style statement for a rock spectacle than a piano…
“Come as you are, as you were.”
Nirvana’s lyric seems a better conduct and style statement for a rock spectacle than a piano-and-sax concert.
And yet we did show up in such a state—a li’l haggard from work, hair disheveled from the quick tricycle ride—one Thursday evening before the Season of Christmas Carmaggedon, for a night of French music with South African saxophonist Adam Campbell and the Philippines’ very own Mariel Ilusorio on the piano.
It was the launch of Les Jeudis Culturels, or Cultural Thursdays, staged by the Alliance Française de Manille at its 100-capacity concert hall. The venue was packed with expats, diplomats, yuppies, youngsters, of course the culturati, and then friends, and friends of friends, and curious folk enticed by the event’s TV announcement.
The monthly gig is meant to present different facets of French culture while incorporating something of ours.
Ilusorio, a first-prize winner in the 1985 edition of the National Music Competitions for Young Artists, or NAMCYA—an institution in discovering and developing local talent—was the lovely Philippine touch at the cultural event’s debut. She trained at New York’s Julliard School, Ohio’s Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Germany’s Hanover University.
