Three

This will be our response to violence:  to make music more intensely, more beautifully and more devotedly than ever before.¬ - Leonard Bernstein

There is violence of all sorts.  Beyond the death toll created by mounting wars and terrorist attacks, there is the body count of souls destroyed by the business of living out pre-fab lives.  There is the slow inevitable death of the senses – confronted by the never-ending tickertape of bad news, loud background noise and nondescript mall muzak, we become blind to pain, deaf to beauty, numb to music.  Substituting city clamour with an iPod drip, we live in our protective self-sufficient bubbles of make-belief perfection.

The two conductors and I, together with the songbirds in our choirs, are kindred spirits in our response to such violence.  We come from different countries, and share the same language – music.  With similar reputations from being provocatively direct, we are on a campaign to make music alive.  No machine can recreate the communicative power of a people in riotous song.

So thank you, Jojo and Ko, Ateneo Chamber singers and Gaia Philharmonic Choir, for sharing the stage with us, as one.  In the words of Filipino composer-songwriter Ryan Cayabyab, we “dream that someday our songs, in some way, will bring a bright tomorrow – full of LOVE, full of HOPE, full of JOY”.  We look forward to THREE together again, in Manila and Tokyo.

And thank you, our audience, for sharing this magical evening with us.  We hope you’ll be charmed.