THE choir loft was the ‘orchestral pit’ sending the folksy notes plucked from bandurrias and chirping octavinas into the curved ceilings of the newly restored church of Saints Peter and Paul in Loboc, transforms the entire stone structure into an acoustic sound room as organizers staged this year’s commemorative program of Saint Cecilia, patroness of music and musicians and the music town’s inspiration.
And a living church, literally the whole community: a grade school kid in the play, a septuagenarian using a folk instrument, teen pop singers on the cast: an engineer director, an accomplished contactor on a saxophone, the Loboc Youth Ambassadors Band, the famed Loboc Children’s Choir, Children’s choir alumni, multi awarded musical directors and professionals in the production staff attempted the almost impossible: Santa Cecilia The Musical: A Journey of Faith of Lobocanons, 2022.
Yet Bohol’s biggest assemblage of musicians and music artists in an hour-long musical play on the life of Santa Cecilia, the music capital’s patroness, on her day, November 22, The Musical is this year’s annual traditional event for the virgin martyr who sang her way to sainthood.
And there is no other Bohol town that can pull it off, other than Loboc.
A musical play that retells the life of Santa Cecilia in the Roman period, Loboc playwrights brought relevance to the story by integrating in a neat juxtaposition of a modern story of peer pressure, unplanned pregnancy, spiritual guidance provided by a deeply rooted faith and redemption which culminates in a story that every contemporary teen has to ponder upon and take lessons from.
Presented in a brilliant stitching of modern, traditional and experimental multi-staging, the play incorporates multi-media projection, traditional and original music handed down from generations, church music and the recreation of traditional activities steeped in music and the town’s intangible heritage.
Staged in a town which distinguishes itself as the host of the Jesuit missionary priests who introduced music to the converts in the Hispanic times, Loboc has since kept the tradition alive by teaching and introducing music to the kids through free public grade school Solfeggio vocal exercises.
It was said that when the Spaniards introduced music, converts would wake the priests up at dawn, so they could make the dawn procession singing, a resident shared.
Reinforced by proper voice coaching classes in the children’s choir membership auditions, regular singing competitions, church activities that are inseparable with the music traditions like Flores de Mayo, Hugos, and the Suroy sa mga Musikero, a daily dose of music wafting from the floating restaurants, Loboc Childrens’ Choir rehearsals, Youth Ambassador Band performances, local rondallas and comparzas and a history that says once upon a time that every house in Loboc had a piano, residents here literally grow in an environment that one can easily get saturated with.
Play director Jirrey Aguilar said it was, for him a dream come true to have a collaboration with Loboc’s community of artists and our Kasing Sining.”
Agular who grew up listening to the sound of the rehearsals of these groups admitted he was still hesitant because “it is my first time to direct a musical, but I will be working with artists, teachers and people whom I look up to and were part of my formation as a person and artist. But I took a leap of faith and accepted that trust given to me by Sir the rest of the core group of this production.
Using the story of Cecille, a kid bullied in grade school as she was born out of proper wedding in a religiously conservative Loboc, the story then presents the parallel story of Santa Cecilia and her suffered pressures in her lifetime.
Woven in the journey of faith of the Lobocanons, Cecille’s story becomes an avid retelling of the story of Santa Cecilia, in the eyes of the Boholanos who are also called to be witnesses of faith in this repressive society, if only to be modern ‘models’ of conversion.
Brought to stage by the expert staging and direction of Bohol’s most active theater group, Kasing Sining founded by multi-awarded theater and music director Gardy Labad, in partnership with multi awarded musical scorer Odoni Pestelos, Santa Cecilia The Musical is Kasing Sining’s other religious musical after Paingin sa Pagkasantos which recounts the stories of Blessed Jose Rada and Leon Inchausti.
Recounting the dynamic process of the staging, Aguilar hailed the actors and performers, artistic team and organizing team for making everything come together and deliver all the hopes and his vision on stage. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
