The Dalaguete Music Foundation

I travelled to Dalaguete on Saturday. It is a beautiful town on the coast of Cebu. Unlike the big cities, it is nice and peaceful and quiet. There are some tricycles on the streets, but there are more pedicabs, and the houses retain more of the old styles before cinder block and tin roofs became so omnipresent. Vilma who is the sister of Emmy and the sister in law of Danny had us over to her house. It is a small but wonderful home. There is a nipa roof with bamboo flooring and woven mats for walls. I wish more houses were like this. Her place reminds me of the book "Wind in the Willows." I don't usually use the word cozy, but it fits.

We stayed at Ester Hana's house which is truly beautiful and distinctive. Her sister Edna was a perfect host and her brother Iyvar was there with his daughter. I had once been told by Alice Murzyn that their cook Inday was the best in the world, and she was right!

I spent Saturday afternoon at Nester's place near the seashore. When we got there a brass band of nearly twenty musicians practicing. They were mainly of high school age, and they were good. Another group who had practiced earlier was playing Takyan, one of the games I keep seeing here where kids bounce a washer off their biceps and feet. By the way I apologize if I did not spell everyone's name correctly. After the practice, Nester and three other musicians "jammed" with me. Nester has performed on the tenor sax for twenty seven years throughout Asia so I had reason to feel a little overwhelmed. It was a lot of fun, and I made yet another resolution to learn more jazz pieces. I am so dependent on reading music that it takes a lot of practice to just play a piece after hearing it.

The next day we went to mass where the Rondalla group was performing. Dalaguete is not a huge town so I was amazed to see a huge cathedral with about a thousand worshippers! The Rondalla group looked to be nearly fifty kids! Ma'am Judith was conducting, and I marvelled at the cathedral itself. I must admit that my Cebuano has to improve a lot. Much of the time during the mass, I spent my time looking at the pictures on the wall and noticing the two birds flying around the cathedral. The cathedral was built in the 1800's during the time of the Spanish, and it showed that kind of ornate style. The Spanish presence for three hundred years is found in Spanish cognates, Spanish last names, Rondalla instruments and Catholicism. Ha ha. And Catholicism is no small matter in the Philippines! But apparently a lot of colleges stopped teaching the language in the 1960's, and I believe that the Spanish themselves did not encourage Filipinos to learn Spanish. There is a saying that the Philippines had three hundred years of rule by the Spanish and one hundred years of rule by Hollywood, and it sounds right. The Philippines has probably the best entertainers throughout Asia, and Dalaguete is one of those places that produces the best of the best.

After the mass we went to a rehearsal of the Rondalla groups. They were wonderful kids and really fine musicians. I played two of the pieces that Danny and I have written, and after the rehearsal I gave them some juggling lessons. I really wished that Elliot and Asa could have been there too. We all miss them here.

Before leaving there was a wonderful dinner that Edna had for us. The dinner should have been about music, but there was a series of six boxing matches between Mexico and the Philippines, and I have it on good authority that the whole country shut down for this event!!!!!!!! I have become a fan of Boom Boom Bautista because he is from Bohol, and unfortunately although the Philippines won five of the six bouts, Boom Boom got knocked out in the first round. You could see that the board of the Dalaguete Music Foundation included some serious boxing fans, and I was not the only one unhappy. I left, and I assured everyone that Danny would be back with me next summer along with my students so I am holding all of you to that promise. Dalaguete is a beautiful place to visit, and the Dalaguete Music Foundation is really a marvelous organization.