MANILA, Philippines - A week before the Velvet Channel?s broadcast of ?Vivere: Andrea Bocelli Live in Tuscany,? I found myself invited to Boracay to get to know more what the entertainment channel had to offer apart from the sensational Italian blind tenor doing a duet with assorted divas headed by Sarah Brightman.

The rerun of the Bocelli concert was a big curiosity for me as it featured the guest appearance of Chinese pianist Lang Lang, who was soloist in Rach 2 with the New York Philharmonic in Manila a few years back.

Grand entrance

I didn?t know there was such a piece for tenor, piano and chamber orchestra until I heard the piece ?Io Ci Sarò? with music and lyrics by Walter Afanasieff, Eugenio Finardi, David Foster and―Andrea Bocelli!

The opening part was a grand entrance of the piano soloist and an equally grand orchestral accompaniment reminiscent of the Ravel concerto. Then Bocelli came in, with the pianist and orchestra blending with the singer like a ?classicalized? pop song enhanced by classical ornamentation.

But after his appearance with the tenor, Lang Lang was given a number equal to his talent with Brahms?s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C Sharp Minor. On this fourth production number of a Bocelli concert, Lang Lang was given a standing ovation by the predominantly Italian crowd.

?Apart from the first-rate concerts,? Velvet and Cinema One Channel head Ronald Arguelles said, ?of course, we have the Oscar and Tony awards and rare films like ?Madame Bovary.? Our target market is really women from 18 to 35 and, of course, the men of their lives.?

Arguelles is the same person behind Cinema One which gave viewers a rare rerun of Brocka?s classic ?Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang? last week.

?You?d be surprised to know we have a good audience in Cinema One next to HBO. But on Velvet Channel, we would like to be known as a fun channel for viewers who know what they want and are deeply aware of the outside world.?

And so on this Boracay trip, we had the chance to see the channel?s market profile and what the cable network strives to project. This is the same market that enjoys both Bocelli, Michael Bublé and ?Good Morning America.?

Special theater

What was beautiful about the Bocelli-Lang Lang broadcast was the location, the tenor?s home village called Lajatico in Tuscany, where a special theater was constructed just for that concert. The venue was called Teatro del Silenzio (Theater of Silence) as indeed it was a quiet place before this concert.

After the Velvet Channel?s ?No Tan, No Entry? dance party, I retreated to a beach café called Aria with the new book ?Romanza? by Rio Alma and Marivic Rufino. With the sound of waves in the background, I read short poems in English and Filipino. I thought about how perfectly the book blended with the environment, as I reflected on Bocelli and Lang Lang and their Tuscan extravaganza.

I went over Rufino?s painting, ?Tuscan Dream 1,? in the book, as accompanied by a Rio Alma poem:

Pagkabilog ng buwan
Umuurong ang bundok;
Nagpipilat sa unan
Ang gunita ng hamog.

Translated by Marne Kilates thus:

As the moon waxes
The mountain wanes;
The pillow is scarred
By its memory of dew.

Rufino said she actually was listening to Pavarotti and Bocelli when she was painting her Tuscan series.

?Romanza,? which features selected poems in the traditional Filipino short forms such as tanaga, diyona and dalit, is both a lyrical and visual treat, with superb translations by Kilates.

?Romanza? is the perfect book to bring as you reflect on life and art under the hot summer sun of a fabled island.

For inquiries on the ?Vivere: Andrea Bocelli Live in Tuscany? DVD, call 0906-5104270.

Licad praised in Germany

A German music critic called Cecile Licad ?thrilling? in her first performance last week of Gershwin?s Concerto in F with the Oldenburg State Orchestra in Germany under the baton of Dutch conductor Gerard Oskamp.

Wrote Warner Matthies: ?An American program, a Dutch guest conductor, a Filipina pianist―no concert can be more international than this season?s 7th Symphonic Concert in the Large House. The almost excessive length of the program was more than compensated by the outstanding artistic quality of the performance.

?Copland?s ?Appalachian Spring? suite is a pleasant work, bubbling with vitality, with impressionist, classicistic, and folkloristic touches, many elements derived from dance, and ?sparkling? melodies in the various short episodes. It was presented well by conductor and orchestra, and great care was taken in playing with pointed accentuation, rhythmic discipline, and sensitive timbre. In Gershwin?s Concerto in F these qualities were even further enriched by the perfect interplay of conductor, orchestra and soloist. This piano concerto, which―as a composition―is far from perfect result of a short but violent ?marriage? of late Romantic pathos with upscale, jazz-inflicted pop music, made the greatest imaginable effect under these conditions.

?The boisterousness of the solo part, whose excessive technical challenges à la Liszt are not matched by the musical density of its texture, did not become apparent in this performance, because Cecile Licad touched the score in a way that was thrilling to listen to, thrilling to watch, and the quality of her interpretation exceeded by far the quality of the composition. Each and every passage of her solo part was brilliantly played, with rhythmic fire and a natural musicality that made the work glow brightly and transcended the superficial texture of the composition, transforming it into almost―almost! a great work of music of REAL substance. The audience was gratified with two encores: ?Liebesleid? and ?Liebesfreud? by Kreisler-Rachmaninoff.?