Pianist and tenor Carlos Ibay triumphantly opens concert tour

Pianist Carlos Ibay

Featuring:

Carlos Ibay, piano

Programme:

Franz Liszt

     Liebesträume No. 3, S.541

     Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 in D flat major, S.244/6

Andrew Lloyd Weber, T.S. Eliot and Trevor Nunn

     Memory from Cats

Andrew Lloyd Weber and Charles Hart

     Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera

Isaac Albéniz

     Tango in D, Op. 165, No. 2

Frédéric Chopin

     Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op. 60

Salvatore d'Esposito and Tito Manlio

     Anema e core

Ernesto de Curtis

     Non ti scordar di me

Pianist and tenor Carlos Ibay kicked off his Triumphant Spirit concert tour with a performance coinciding with the launch of the papal stamps at The Block in SM City North EDSA. Blinded due to complications stemming from his premature birth at only six months, the US-based Ibay provided inspiration aside from the music that managed to stop an impressive number of shoppers on their tracks inside the busy mall.

The concert lineup he prepared for that afternoon was a mix of standard piano repertoire along with some show tunes and arias. He introduced each piece before playing, providing a brief background and even showing some of his humor in the process. But even without his annotations, the audience would’ve noted the contrast between the two pieces by Franz Liszt in which he opened the program: the lyrical Liebesträume No. 3, S.541, and the virtuosic (and very flashy) Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 in D flat major, S.244/6.

Ibay then changed genres and went for a couple of show tunes by Andrew Lloyd Weber. The audience was totally taken by surprise as they heard an operatic tenor voice coming out from Ibay during the opening lines of Memory from Cats. He then followed it up with Music of the Night from the Phantom of the Opera.

Since this performance was in line with the release of the papal stamps and Pope Francis’ visit to the country, Ibay dedicated the next piece Isaac Albéniz’ Tango in D, Op. 165, No. 2 to his eminence. Albéniz hailed from Spain, but the current pope is fond of tango which originated in his home country, Argentina. When he performed Frédéric Chopin’s Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op. 60, I feared that the audience might felt it too long or too “classical” and inaccessible. But he allayed my fears when he prepped the audience by telling them to imagine being on a boat ride as he played this piece.

Ibay acknowledged a couple in the audience who were celebrating their 50^th golden wedding anniversary and dedicated his next song, Anima e core (With All My Heart and Soul) by Salvatore d'Esposito and Tito Manlio to them. He then paid homage to the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti by ending his performance with Non ti scordar di me (Never Forget About Me) by Ernesto de Curtis.

The audience gave a standing ovation and didn’t let Ibay leave the stage just yet. For his first encore, he performed Francisco Santiago’s Pakiusap which was his first performance of this song in public since he has only heard it only three days prior. To thank the very appreciative audience, he also gave another encore which was a notched up version of Chopsticks (The Celebrated Chop Waltz by Arthur de Lulli) that was interspersed with snippets of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, S.244/2 which I think was the version originally arranged by Liberace.

A classical music performance at a mall atrium always makes me a bit uneasy since the surrounding noise could easily distract me and it entails me to concentrate a lot harder. And the use of microphones to amplify the sound means that a lot of the nuances will be lost. The members of the audience during that afternoon didn't nitpick about all these and were nonetheless very pleased with the whole of Ibay's performance especially with the song numbers.

After the performance, I had the pleasure of joining Carlos Ibay, along his parents Carmencita and Roman, and organizers from SM and SinagTala Management for Filipino Performing Arts for dinner over at Mary Grace. I learned there that when Chuckie, as he is fondly called, first heard Chopin back when he was still around seven or eight years old, he wouldn’t want to listen to anything else since he thought that every other music aside from Chopin’s was trash. I was also able to practice with him my Italian while helping ourselves with pizza, pasta and of course, the famous ensaymada. I found out that he learns new music by listening to it although I failed to ask him how he manages to figure out which keys/notes are to be played with which hand and how he tackles whenever one hand needs to cross over the other. I still find it hard to imagine myself in his situation in which sight is completely out of the equation when learning/playing with music. He said that he was encouraged by his former teacher to conduct masterclasses here in the country. And that I would need to prepare my Chopin since I would be one of the first takers of his masterclass here.

There are still quite a lot of things I want to learn about Carlos Ibay. Thank goodness that there are still chances for me, and for everyone else for that matter, to catch his performances as the Triumphant Spirit concert tour resumes on January 19, 2015, 8:00 PM at T.E.A.T.R.I.N.O. in Promenade, Greenhills. The tour continues on January 21, 2015, 4:00 PM at the Samsung Hall SM Aura Premier and will finally wrap up with a performance on January 29, 2015, 7:00 PM at the FEU Auditorium. For those wanting more information regarding these remaining performance dates can call or text 0918-XINTALA (0918-9468252).