THERE?S a free weekend concert treat on Dec. 6, 7:30 p.m. at the RCBC Theater in Makati. It features an evening of Spanish Christmas carols courtesy of Instituto Cervantes under its head José Rodriguez Rodriguez.

The concert is part of a cultural grant given to pianist Angelo Ortiz who will present a choir and a 40-member symphonic band to revive rarely heard Spanish Christmas carols.

?Our grant is actually open to other forms of cultural endeavor,? said Rodriguez who knows the Philippines inside and out. ?Anything that will showcase our mutual Spanish heritage and culture are most welcome,? he added.

Moreover, Ortiz is one pianist not confined to the concerns of a typical budding pianist. Playing a fairly good Chopin?s Heroic Polonaise for the media last week, Ortiz is also into composition (he has several CDs to his credit) and is bent on introducing classical music outside the periphery of formal concert settings.

He is touring malls, he has won popular composition competitions in Hollywood, he is servicing corporate events and yet he still has time to work on his first concerto, Grieg?s A Minor which hopefully he can perform next summer.

His teacher is none other than Prof. Nita Quinto of whom he has high regard. ?I learned more and progressed faster under her,? he told the Inquirer. ?She is the encouraging type and has a lively way of teaching. She doesn?t mind if I make mistakes and she has a certain technique that is really effective.?

Velasco clarification

From tenor Noel Velasco comes this clarification on a story I wrote last week on him and Evelyn Mandac:

?I never sang at New York City Opera (NYCO) but almost did?in Zimmermann?s Die Soldaten?which was my very first opera to perform at the Opera Company of Boston in 1982. But I had to back out of the production at NYCO since I was invited at the same period to sing the lead tenor role of Fernand in Donizetti?s La Favorita in Paris at Opera Comique and also at Theatre de Champs-Elysees, in a production in the original French.

?There was no ?downplay? on my part with regard to competitions. In fact, I worked hard to enter competitions in the two short years that I had to ?make it? in the performing scene in the US while I was in Curtis. These were the San Francisco Opera Auditions, the Baltimore Opera Competitions, the Metropolitan Young Artists? Auditions etc., and extended onto Vienna?s Belvedere International Competition for Opera Singers in 1984, when I was already professionally performing with Opera Company of Boston and already had my debut at Kennedy Center with Eve Queler and the Opera Orchestra of New York in Berlioz?s Benvenuto Cellini.

?Sure, there is the element of politics (which was the reason I did not win at the Belvedere Competitions?the Chinese singers coming for the first time to compete and ?invade? and win: ?flavor of the time?). I was one of two finalists. Although without a prize, I was nevertheless invited in the gala concerts they brought to Budapest, Bolzano (Italy), and Vienna (broadcast nationwide in Austria by ORF).?