My First Classical Concert

Miriam College hosted a free concert tonight. It was entitled "Payapang Daigdig (Peacful World): A Christmas Journey from Around the World". As from the title, you can plainly tell that it's just a series of Christmas Carols taken from different parts of the world. Normally I wouldn't be interested in this. But one of my friends was playing the violin in one of the songs and my other friends plan to support her. And the admission was free, so why not?

It was very interesting really. It was my first time to hear Christmas songs from parts of the world that I thought doesn't celebrate Christmas (It being a Christian Holiday and all), such as the African Nowell, or the Chinese version of Silent Night, or even Antarctica's Let It Snow (Ironic isn't it?). The choirs were really good. From the elementary school choirs, to the Miriam College Employee Chorale. They were good, but nothing too extraordinary to talk about.

The 13th song was a Christmas Medley. I looked onto the stage and I saw my friend as she entered the stage. Then I saw her bandmates, carrying their own violins, oboe, trumpets, and cellos. Then I saw adults coming in and sitting next to her. I was surprised because I thought that my friend just belonged to the school's choir. But when I looked at the programme they gave us as we entered the Auditorium, it reads "by the Merto Manila Community Orchestra". I was like HOLY S#!T! These are like pro musicians! And she was going to play with them!? I looked at my friends sitting next to me and they were shocked too.

But as we were just getting over that, the music begins. It was the very first time I experienced a live orchestra play on stage. Even if the music wasn't classical, I can understand why some people like the classics (which were before, extremely boring for me). The brass plays with such strength and force! It's like the sound resonates through my entire body filling me with energy, so much that I could just burst at anytime. The winds balanced it out with it's soothing melody. Its so mild and serene that it calmed the sensations within me. The strings were so versatile. It made me experience a wide variety of contrasting emotions that I couldn't even find the words to explain them. The violins made me excited and mellow, while the cellos struck the balance between the brass and the winds. The percussion kept everything in check, harmonizing the sounds fighting to be the dominant emotion. It was really amazing~ It really awakened the classic within me.

It was the perfect night, until...........