Philippine Madrigal Singers Sings All-Filipino Sacred Music and Arranged Folk Songs at San Agustin Church Intramuros
The University of the Philippines (UP), in cooperation with the Philippine National Commission on Culture and the Arts and the San Agustin Parish in Intramuros Manila, is featuring the world-renowned Philippine Madrigal Singers in an evening of all-Filipino sacred music and arranged folk songs. Choirmaster Mark Anthony Austria Carpio, a cum laude piano major graduate of the College and who currently teaches in UP, leads the 20-member group. Known formerly as “U.P. Madrigal Singers,” the mixed choir was founded in 1963 by former UP music professor and National Artist Andrea Veneracion. The Madz, the group’s nickname, has been made up of faculty, alumni, and students from the said university. During the 1980s and 1990s, it practically won all major choral competition awards in Europe. The UP Madrigal Singers has been the first musical group to reach the highest standard of (Western art) choral singing is Asia.
Sacred Music and Arranged Folk Songs is the first of a series of faculty concerts of the Abelardo Hall Auditorium for the academic year 2012-2013. The series runs from June 15, 2012 until September 23, 2012.
The theme of the forthcoming concert season reflects on Filipino heritage and values. The choral works that the Philippine Madrigal Singers will render on June 15 exemplify the group’s homage to the Filipinos’ durable religious cultural sensibility. It is also a paean to the beauty of traditional Filipino folk songs that the Philippine Madrigal Singers has been famous for, creatively arranging these simple songs to a high level of complexity meant for the concert stage. No musicological research has ever been done on this topic: the parodic folk songs and popular songs that the Madz has been quite noted for.
Sacred Music and Arranged Folk songs will be held at the San Agustin Church in Intramuros, Manila on June 15, 2012. The concert will start at 7:00 pm. For further inquiries, call (+63.2) 929-6963 / 926-0026 / 981-8500 loc. 2629.
Journal of Philippine Music 