CECILE LICAD IN BETWEEN LANDSLIDES & STORMY WEATHER

Once, when Licad saw the instrument before rehearsals, she told me quite frankly, 'Pablo, the piano you secured for me is not a grand piano. It is a grand fetus!'

- By PABLO A. TARIMAN

It was in August 1975 in Legazpi City that I first saw Cecile Licad (then age 14) perform for the first time at the St. Agnes Academy.

When she performs this Sept. 24 at the Manila Metropolitan Theater with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) under Maestro Grzegorz Nowak, I will have logged in a total of 50 years watching and following the country's most celebrated pianist.

This concert is presented by the PPO Society Inc. headed by chairman Anton Huang, and sponsored by Rustan's and Cartier.

Apart from focusing on her chosen repertoire, what keeps her busy before concerts, especially if she is performing in the countryside after her Manila concert?

One, she monitors what kind of pianos will be made available to her.

On top of that, her most reliable piano tuner, Danny Lumabi, should be around for all concert engagements.

The first time I got Licad to perform in an outreach was in 1989 in Baguio City with her cellist husband Antonio Meneses (gold medalist in the Tchaikovsky Competition).

At the time, my piano knowledge was not so reliable and I ended up making do with the only available instrument in a Baguio university.

When Licad saw the instrument before rehearsals, she told me quite frankly, "Pablo, the piano you secured for me is not a grand piano. It is a grand fetus!"

As we prepare for another series of outreach concerts in Baguio City, Pinto Gallery in Antipolo City, the Mira Nila, Iloilo City and Catanduanes, I'd like to recall several episodes involving encounters with good and bad pianos in the provinces and the candid, if heated, exchanges in between.

For the 1997 outreach concert in Legazpi City, a full grand piano traveled from Manila to Albay.

We had no major piano problem in Cebu but when we sailed to Dumaguete City for a concert at the university auditorium, an old but full Steinway grand greeted us and it sounded like a harpsichord.