“The truth is, the line between what is uniquely yours and what is given to you by your culture is invisible to you. Don’t worry about it. Your village is inside you. Your work is to go inside and bring out the sounds you like to hear. There is a sense of value inside you that is more powerful than either your individual self or your cultural self. And there are music practices that can lead you to that sense, and teach you how to hook into it, live inside it, and eventually express it to the assemblage of villages. If you ever enter sound deeply enough, you break open into that world, the soul world where universal music comes from. From that world a shakuhachi flute player plays, and Bulgarian women sing love songs. That village is the same village everyone is from. The gift of sound is that it guides your steps to that place.” —W.A. Mathieu, “The Listening Book”, 1991.
The sounds of music come easily for Annie Nepomuceno. Perhaps when God distributed talents in music, Annie received all mutations of musical expressions: music publisher, music producer, music teacher, musician, music arranger and singer. Can you think of anyone with diverse talents in musicianship, but two – composing and conducting?
Annie was born in Iowa to Norma Roque and Celso Roque, who pursued quantum physics under a Rockefeller scholarship in the University of Iowa, the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and the first environmentalist. Annie was 2 years old when she went to the Philippines and was raised speaking English with Tagalog as a second language.
At an early age, about 8 to 9 years old, Annie had to take piano lessons. Her mom prepared her to audition for a children’s choir. Her dad supported the endeavor by buying her a piano, even if he ended up with just a couple of hundred pesos left in the bank until the next payday.
At UP High School, she would lead the assembly in singing the National Anthem. At UP College of music, she wrote notes in the library, working on David Pomeranz’s music. As luck would have it, Annie wrote music arrangements for him and sang for him — those songs are now included in his album “The Eyes of Christmas.”
I was invited to a rehearsal studio practice, for a concert at the Ford Theater featuring Harana and the Filharmonic, which Annie produced in earlier in 2016. Her sharp ears instantly detected the female singers who were off pitch. “Please take us back to the beginning chords,” she said, before proceeding to sing.
Her equally talented and musically-trained husband Ed — who holds a UP College’s degree in music and is also a music arranger, singer, musician, and conductor — plays back the requested chords on his keyboard. Annie vocalizes the tones and expressions and the female singers follow suit.
Annie’s multi-tasking can be very impressive and to some, disarming, as she can be all these: singer, producer, organizer, newscaster, and marketing the event.
I asked her about her philosophies in producing events, to which she said, “Production has to be organized, to get the best out of people; it is better than the dollars [paid], as it makes them feel needed and important. Usually with practices, if someone is late and does not show up till 5 p.m. when the call time is 3 p.m., it ruins the flow of everything. But, when everyone is on time, everyone wants to align with the group’s direction. If the example is set and there is a program flow, even if someone is not in alignment, they want to be part of that flow and realign herself.”
For the audience, “they must believe they are going to be served something that they cannot get elsewhere.”
As an example, ASAP differs from Ryan Cayabyab’s concerts — both with distinct dynamics.
One relies on bombastic loud sounds and everyone knows ASAP is in town, as it is highly publicized.
For Ryan Cayabyab’s concert, Annie said, “I had to make sure everyone knows about it too, with appropriate attention given to marketing. Even the budget has to reflect that.”
She credits the Ford Amphitheater staff who schooled her on the value of marketing.
“Marketing has to be so ubiquitous that no one can say that they did not hear that the Maestro is in town. I was also more relaxed. The crew was lined up [for the program]. 90 percent was laid out. We practiced. As a musician, you are only as good as the piece you have today. It is not going to be a night of miracles, where singers have to be turned around,” she said.
She visualizes, plans, and writes the script. Then at practice, the program flow is actualized through intensive practice with everyone.
Consequently, her latest production of Ryan Cayabyab and RC Singers got standing ovations in New Jersey, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Hawaii. Annie credits the Maestro and the professional singers.
I wrote in part, a superlative review of that Ryan Cayabyab’s concert:
“RCS Singers added more nostalgia of home, once described by James Baldwin, ‘an irrevocable condition of experiencing a sense of belonging, safety and fulfillment,’ a longing for the Philippines, as they slowly sang Ang Bayan Ko, enunciating each word slowly, with heartfelt emotion and with the same tempo, ‘To Dream the Impossible Dream.’
“Picture this, the singers now have our hearts in their hands, as they alternately do solos, ensemble, and then, together: ‘And the world will be better for this/That one man, scorned and covered with scars/Still strove with his last ounce of courage/To reach the unreachable star,’ while Celine Fabie sang verses of Ang Bayan Ko, ‘Pilipinas kong minumutya/Pugad ng luha at dalita/Aking adhika/Makita kang Sakdal Laya.’ Her soprano voice lingered, as if a dream unfulfilled and a love unrequited.
“What happens next? The last verse Makita Kang Sakdal Laya (To Witness your True Freedom) converged with To Reach the Unreachable Star, in a haunting soprano voice, which extracted a primal longing, a feeling for our birth country to be truly free, from all vestiges of bondage, to misguided measures of success, to incorrect principles of governance, from an unreachable space of creativity and musicality in music, to now genius manifested, and the crowd leaped to standing ovation, literally, shouting bravos.”
How music called her
Annie’s mom took her to extracurricular activities: dance, gymnastics, and choir. Music became a favorite class. She excelled in math and science, but not history.
When her teacher played do re mi fa sol and then randomly changed the sequence, she played the notes with ease, at 7 to 8 years old. “It did not seem complicated. I really believed it was commonplace [referring to her ear for music],” she said. Piano lessons were a mainstay as well as choir practice in her childhood.
She hung out at the music teacher’s room and became the music student of the year at UP High School. One day, she could not make it to the rehearsal of the glee club. She thought she had missed the rehearsal, only to find out they waited for her.
She went to UP College and took up broadcast journalism for a semester. But she mostly hung out at the UP College of Music and was recruited to join the UP Madrigal Singers. When Annie got the music sheets, she rehearsed every night because she enjoyed reading the music. She studied the music in the order from the most difficult first, to the easiest scores last. In three months, she was given a coveted spot in the famous semi-circle that toured Singapore and Korea.
Before the tour, she shifted courses and took up music composition and arranging, learning to take the melody or theme and then writing them in a particular ensemble and style, e.g., ‘Bahay Kubo’ to be sung by three singers, can be arranged into a cha cha or take violin, cello and guitar music and make it a classical new sound.
After the tour, she chose another major, musicology or the science of music but ended up with the same professors.
“The avant-garde movement was active: the music had nothing to do with tonality, but with concept, sound, how it works and how it elicits emotions,” Annie shared. “They would take a chair made of iron and use that as an instrument.”
She continued that some professors were adept in making seemingly “strange” music not built on melody, but on concept.
Annie heard the sounds, but detected no continuity and the flow did not seem to work for her. During that period, Annie described the music community as divided into two camps: “one was the grassroots musicians who knew how to make the rhythm section work and another camp was the avant-garde, with intellectually plotted sound.”
Mark Pullinger described it as “the score’s ululating vocal line, with its repeated syllable flutters and jagged leaps with ease, colouring high notes differently each time.”
Annie graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Musicology and documented indigenous melodies. Her thesis revealed the “indigenous sounds are both praise and worship, something very human and sacred, communicating with her soul, communicating her spirituality and her needs. The patterns are not fixed, but based on their emotions, with a melodic theme that is repeating. What she thinks, feels all refers to God.”
I still remember a Raul Sunico concert wherein the closing song was
“The Prayer.” Annie sang with the Harana Men’s Chorus and her soprano voice carried with such a strength and commanding presence, as the male tenors, about 10 of them. That was a magnificent show of female strength and prowess!
Annie remarked, “You have to make it at par with others,” otherwise the audience would have seen the lack of parity.
She added, “even if there are flaws, the artist should not stop to show the flaws, as the eyes and ears will stick to the flaws. Don’t give it away as not everyone can hear the mistake.”
As to unfulfilled dreams, Annie would like to record more albums and publish progressive educational music, with Philippine themes. Another is to learn how to get funded better for future projects, “Music has impact. It has to be a live performance. People should go see live performances. Nothing compares to being in the same breathing space as a phenomenal performer.”
Sounds do come easy for Annie, as do big projects, which she effectively produces. You get a sense that she is one positive driving force for center-staged musicians ready to be on top of their game!
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Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for AJ Press for 9 years now. She contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, Japan, Mexico and 22 national parks in the US, in pursuit of her love for arts.