Beyond Lady Gaga
NO HOLDS BARRED |
Armida Siguion-Reyna |
First, let my clarify I don’t have anything against the American pop singer. I’m told my younger apo like her and that my 20-year-old grandson dances to her music, so fine. But having just read in another broadsheet about shoemaker’s daughter Angelyn Bayrante, 12, first-prize winner of the first Maria Carpena Kundiman Song Festival in Biñan last October, I can’t help urge the younger among us to please, pretty please, go beyond Lady Gaga — if we want to have more of the likes of Bayrante and kundiman song festivals.
Who is Maria Carpena? Wikipedia in the Internet fortunately tells us more about her, more than just her dates of birth and death (Oct. 22, 1886 — March 8, 1915), her being a singer/stage performer, and the Philippines’ first recording artist, dubbed as the Nightingale of the Zarzuela. Google her names for anecdotes that include how “her soprano pitch… could break a glass with her powerful voice… unable to read notes, she learned the score by ear, a practice commonly known as ‘oido.’ She had her first stage appearance sometime in 1901, singing in a benefit concert at the Zorilla Theater when she was 15…
“She decided to pursue her career, her father disowned her, ‘hanggang magpantay and mga paa’… sought refuge among the Sisters of Charity of Colegio de Sta. Rosa in Intramuros, a former beaterio known for taking care of orphaned Filipino girls… met and fell in love with Jose “Pepe” Alcantara, a sales agent and kalesa-maker… had two children with him… Pepe’s untimely death was announced to her in the middle of a performance… she went with the show with tears flowing from her eyes..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101112com4.html
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