A Night of Asian Music and Dances, featuring the AILM Chorale –Asian Ensemble
a review by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
(appears in Munting Nayon, July 2006 issue )


The Geertekerk with its simple structure and its high ceilings seemed a fitting frame for the performance of the AILM Chorale-Asian Ensemble.

Known for its outstanding performance of contemporary works of Asian composers and folk song arrangements, the AILM Chorale is also known as the foremost exponent of Asian church music. Not only that, but according to conductor, Jonathan Velasco, “there is not a single western piece in AILM’s repertoire,”

Composed of 40 members coming from different parts of Asia, and conducted by Jonathan Velasco, the chorale’s performance on the evening of May 24th was the first in a series of activities launched by Stichting Bayanihan to mark its 15th year of service to the Filipino community in The Netherlands.

Gathering was the first movement on the evening’s programme. We were greeted by a dance and song performance originating from Flores Island, Indonesia, inviting people to gather and praise the Lord. Following this first piece, the choir proceeded to sing Awit sa Panginoon, a song of worship composed by contemporary Filipino composer, Robin Estrada.

These two songs, Wahai Seiuruh Bumi Pujilah Iuhan ( Indonesian) and Awit sa Panginoon (Filipino), marked the beginning of an evening of entertainment, awe, and celebration.

The second movement of the chorale’s repertoire for the evening, was entitled Meditation. Here, we were gifted with songs such as Wing of Light and Mercy, To the Unnamed Light, and Giong Ngo Ko.

While all these pieces were sung with equal musicality, the one song that stands out in my memory is the performance of the second song in this movement.

To the Unnamed Light (arranged by Francisco Feliciano), is a song that is a translation of poet Rabindranath Tagore’s poem of the same title: “Life sends us in a blade of grass/ its silent hymn of praise/ to the unnamed light.

The elements of eastern mysticism and faith were almost tangible in the way the choir performed this piece so that it moves from being mere sung music into an art form. We are reminded not only aurally, but visually as well, of how worship is a revolution of the soul towards God. Stationing members of the female choir along the sides of the church, the men of the chorale in the center and with the lead soprano at the front, produced a full-stereo effect magnified by the acoustics of the church’s high ceilings.

While the men produced a bass humming accompaniment, the clear tones of the women mirrored the crystal sounding of the bell rung by the lead soprano.

Perhaps an interesting note here, is how all of the evening’s repertoire were sung a capella. The exceptions to this were songs and dances where indigenous instruments were used and the second half of the programme where the guitar accompanied Filipino songs.

Following this we moved on to the third movement where we were greeted with songs of celebration from: India, from the Igorot tribe of the Philippines and from Kalinga. This section ended with Gangsa players and dance, where the members of the chorale presented a traditional celebratory song and dance from Kalinga. Dressed in indigenous attire, the women in their woven skirts, the men in their bahag with gongs and wooden bamboo sticks in hand, this performance was greeted with cheers. A fitting end to the first half of the evening’s performance.

After the intermission, we were treated to a selection of folksongs and dances from different parts of Asia. A courtship song from Batak, Indonesia, a folksong from Betawi, Indonesia, a song to celebrate the Festival of Light in Thailand, a song expressing happiness and joy from Singapore and Malaysia, and a dance based on the Islamic movements of worshipping Allah.

Worth noting here, is the performance of the Saman Dance (Aceh, Indonesia ). Starting with slow movements, almost like child’s play, accelerating up to a speed which I’ve been told has been known to cause injury if one of the dancers should perform a move wrong or lag behind in rhythm, this number was well-received and applauded.

Following this, the AILM chorale proceeded to sing six Filipino songs dear to the hearts of many of those seated in the audience. Certainly, we are all familiar with songs such as Waway, Ti ayat ti meysa nga ubing, Pokpok Alimpako and Rosas Pandan. During this section of the performance, you could hear some of the audience humming or singing along under their breaths. A medley of Tagalog songs was greeted with equal enthusiasm, and as the evening drew to a close, the feeling of nostalgia weighed heavy in the air.

As with every performance that captures our hearts, there was a mass reluctance to leave. In response to the audience’s cries of encore, the AILM proceeded to sing for us the well-known Dahil sa Iyo, and a moving rendition of Ryan Cayabyab’s composition entitled, Paraiso.


Finally, the evening was over. We left the church, our heads still ringing with the sounds of Asia. For our European friends, the evening was an entertainment allowing them a deeper insight and appreciation of our culture . For us, the Filipino audience, I believe the evening made a deeper connection as these songs carried us back to our hometowns, and to the memories of a place we long for, and have left behind.

Stichting Bayanihan – Philippine Women’s Centre in The Netherlands
By Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
( appeared on Pinoyexpats.org in March/April issue )

“Bayanihan is a Filipino word meaning “neighbourly cooperation” or helping each other. Stichting Bayanihan is a self-help women organisation, established in 1991, providing various forms of assistance and support to any and all Filipino women who are living (temporarily or permanently) and/or working (documented or undocumented) in the Netherlands. It is a service and training centre for Filipinas who are in problem situations and those needing assistance for self-development to make their lives as Filipina migrants more meaningful and fulfilling.”
-excerpt from Stichting Bayanihan folder-


Perhaps one of the challenges of moving to The Netherlands is the lack of common denominators. Here, the migrant is faced with issues pertaining not only to adjustment in terms of culture, society, weather and food, but also with the need to learn a new language and perhaps acquire another education.


What do you do when you are a Filipina coming to a country that does not speak English? Where do you go when you realize the diploma you’ve worked so hard for is no use unless you can speak Dutch? What about if you are an au pair who interprets the word for what it is - as an exchange of social meanings? What if your employer equates that word with personal slave? What if your husband reveals himself to be, not the charming well-spoken man who promised you the world, but rather an abusive moronic fellow who says you are good for nothing? What if you are struggling on the brink of depression, and have isolated yourself from the world because you no longer know why you left everything behind for this cold country? What to do? Where to go? Whom to see?


Bayanihan strives to provide answers to these questions. As the only professional service institution for Filipinas in The Netherlands, the foundation’s program includes rendering Social Services assistance – it not only gives practical tips, but provides intensive guidance and counselling to Filipinas in various problem-situations who are in need of immediate and direct help. It has a telephone helpline devoted entirely to receiving calls from Filipinas who need information, immediate help or who simply need to talk. It provides follow-up support activities, as well as special support services for Filipina au pairs.


Bayanihan’s program also involves networking, lobbying and advocacy. Her lobby and advocacy work are primarily on migration laws, independent residence permits for women, on working conditions, welfare and health services, and equal job opportunities. Bayanihan works together and cooperates with local and national Dutch organizations, and with European and Philippine-based organizations as well.


Bayanihan disseminates information on the situation of Filipinas in the Netherlands and on the causes of their migration from the Philippines. It also conducts and initiates researches and surveys on issues concerning target groups, and it compiles and publishes primers and pamphlets on existing laws and policies which are relevant to their work and to the Filipina Migrants in a Dutch society.


As a preventive strategy, Bayanihan conducts for its target groups (skills and awareness-raising) trainings and seminars such as (a) assertiveness training; (b) basic women orientation; (c) inter-cultural communication; (d) leadership training; (e) basic counselling ; (f) gender-based violence; and (g) bi-cultural parenting. Bayanihan’s resource persons and trainors are experts on and have concrete experiences on the relevant subject matter and specific cases.


Bayanihan started out as a social service committee of DAMAYAN, another Filipino organization in 1988. In 1991, Bayanihan became an independent foundation as a response to the needs of the Filipina migrants in the Netherlands who confront integration-related problems, such as difficulties in cultural, marital and psychological adjustments, to various entanglements with the Dutch legal system.


Since coming into contact with Bayanihan in 1999, I see how Bayanihan as a foundation has grown from that place of lending a helping hand, a listening ear and a rescuing arm to becoming a place where Filipinas regain that sense of community and connection that is so essential to our culture. As a professional organization, it continues to train and develop a network of volunteers comprised of Filipinas who join hands together to work towards a common goal.


In the sharing of experiences, in the call for joined hands, in its dedication towards helping her fellow Filipinas Bayanihan provides a platform from which the Filipina can say to the Dutch society, “I have a voice and therefore I am.”


During the recent celebration of International Women’s Day, Bayanihan hosted discussions centred on the present day issues of integration and participation. An open dialogue between the Filipino participants and non-Filipino participants brought us to a deeper understanding of how integration works as a two way street, and how we can speak up to influence the Dutch political decision-making process.


Organizations like Bayanihan free Filipinas to embark on journeys of exploration and personal enrichment. They encourage us to be involved and engaged in issues relevant not only to the migrant community but to the Dutch community as a whole.


Bayanihan provides a safe atmosphere where we can share our emotional struggles, fears, experiences, losses as well as triumphs, laughter as well as tears.


Each time I return to Bayanihan, I find myself returning to that sense of connectedness and community. The knowledge that I am not alone, but am surrounded by sisters who have encountered the same struggle restores to me a sense of faith, the awareness of my legacy and history, and the need to pass this on to coming generations.


In becoming a part of Bayanihan, I have experienced how it is to lay aside the biases of my past and take up the cloak of understanding and compassion for others. I find myself awakened to a growing concern and connection to the plight of my countrymen and my countrywomen.


I think of Bayanihan as a representation of the ideal of integration. Adjusting to the culture and accepting the norms of the society it finds itself in, it continues to retain the essential Filipino spirit of pakikipagkapwa, pagkakaisa, pakikibaka and community.


In embracing the spirit of Bayanihan, in becoming a part of this organization, I return to the truth of me being a Filipina in a foreign country.


Perhaps herein lies the strength of the ethic of Bayanihan. It goes far deeper than what is stated on the flyer. In establishing community, we give back to each other our sense of identity and belonging. In helping others find a place in an ever-changing multicultural society, we find our place. In strengthening the weak, we become strong.


How we need organizations like these as a help to those in need of help, as a support for those who need support, as a refuge for those in need of refuge and as a community for those who long for community.


First we are Filipinas, then we are migrants. Bayanihan, Mabuhay ka!

AN EVENING OF MUSIC, FEATURING FILIPINO CONCERT ARTIST, CECIL LICAD
a review by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
( Published in Munting Nayon, June 2006)

To listen to Cecil Licad is to witness art in palpable form. It is to understand the interconnection of life and art, music and poetry, composition and translation. It is to hear the piano played by a wizard who translates notes into songs that inhabit the spaces of our soul.

Cecil Licad is a pianist in a class of her own, and the Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ was abuzz with culturally minded Filipinolandia as well as their Dutch counterparts on the 13th of May. The response to the Philippine Embassy’s invitation to attend Miss Licad’s concert was overwhelming.

Consul General a.h.Eppo Horlings gave his welcome address, to an auditorium that was almost full to capacity. After a short speech given by His Excellency, Ambassador Romeo A. Arguelles, the lights dimmed, spotlight focused on centerstage, on the grand piano, and a wave of applause filled the auditorium as Cecil Licad walked onstage.

Anyone looking at this woman could not guess at the power, the wizardry and the skill that lie behind her simple facade. She bows, takes her seat and placing her hands deliberately on the keys, sounds out the first notes of the Fantasie in c-minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

This is so typical of Cecil Licad. First, the simple approach, and then the enchantment of her music.

We understand we are in the presence of an artist of superb skill. As the notes unfold, we find ourselves carried along into the passages of the Fantasie created by Mozart, now translated for us by the artist, Cecil Licad. While her rendition of Mozart is more romantic than classical, more expressive than detached, it serves her purpose well as it transports us to a realm where notes cascade and cavort and chase one another over the keyboard. In the hands of a lesser pianist, the expression would be over-dramatized, or the detachment too detached. Cecil produces the perfect mix, inviting the listener to come closer to the music.

In between, a short breather, just enough for the listener to regain his breath, and the musician launches into Chopin’s 12 Etudes op. 25. It is as if Cecil Licad has taken possession of these notes. As if she has torn the music from the page and made it her own. She is the artist who takes us on a whirling dazzling movement of runs, crescendos, diminuendos, dissonances and harmonies which leave the listener breathless.

Listening to her, I could not help but think of how Chopin is called the poet of the piano and how it takes only another poet to understand and translate the works of a poet long gone. I can imagine the piano poet, Chopin, playing these etudes with equal fiery passion..

We are privileged to bear witness to what won her that Leventritt Gold Medal in 1981. We hear power in her control over the music, the strength that is not strident but issues from perfect technique. Her fortes resonate inside our bones, and her pianos and pianissimos seem to draw the very breath from our souls. Every note rings clear and true, her runs are amazingly clean, not a stumble there, and the octave sequences, are a marvel.

Observe the swiftness of her fingers on the keyboard, observe how not a finger is placed carelessly, but all movements are thought out.

Hers is sheer musical poetry, Chopin himself would have risen up in from his grave to clap his hands and shout bravo and bravissimo.

After the twenty minute intermission, we returned to the auditorium to listen to Cecil play the Nocturne by J. Guy Ropartz, and to witness her masterful rendition of Sergej Rachmaninov’s, Sonata no. 2 in B flat minor op. 36.

Rachmaninov’s Sonata no. 2 with its musical layers and technical challenges is a piece that is not easily received by concert goers. In the hands of a lesser musician, the attention of the audience wanders. I believe Rachmaninov himself would have been proud of Cecil Licad’s rendition of this masterpiece.

Masterful as the master, Cecil Licad plays this piece not only flawlessly but she engages her listening public and keeps them hungry for more long after she has lifted her hands from the keyboard to signify the end of the final piece.

It was interesting to note that the programme for the evening gave a listing of classical-romantic-impressionistic and late romantic composers. For an evening purported to promote culture, I noticed a lack of anything Filipino in Miss Licad’s repertoire.

Because of this it was pleasing, as well as an indication of the sensitivity of the musician, when in response to the cries of encore and bravo, Miss Licad performed a very Filipino composition, entitled Maligayang Bati. A poignant rendition as we bear in mind that a majority of her listeners that evening were Filipinos who still dream and long for the beloved country.