Viva Voce, the choral group headed by soprano Camille Lopez-Molina, will close its season with a Christmas offering, “Viva Vivaldi,” which headlines Antonio Vivaldi’s triumphant “Gloria,” part of the Catholic Mass and based on the hymn “Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Gloria to God in the Highest).”
The singers will be accompanied by Classical Players Philippines, a new group under the baton of Arturo Molina, until recently with the Manila Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra is described as “a very casual get-together,” and includes some of conductor Molina’s students at the University of the Philippines College of Music.
The concert, a fundraising event for next year’s projects, will be held on Dec. 14, 7 p.m., at the Ronac Lifestyle Center, Paseo de Magallanes, Makati City.
The Vivaldi work is 25 minutes long, to be interpreted by young soloists Lizzie Bett Estrada, soprano, and Alyssa Garcia, mezzo, an ensemble of 14 singers and an equal number of musicians.
“The original vignette (concert) was supposed to have a lonely hearts Christmas theme,” said Lopez-Molina in an online interview from Australia, where her group performed Beethoven’s “choral” symphony. “But after our last one, we decided that it would be much more celebratory and fulfilling to do a sacred choral work.”
Part of the reason was also sentimental: “Soprano Margarita Gomez Giannelli and I both made our professional debut singing the solos in this work, with the University of the Philippines Concert Chorus and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rey Paguio at the Cultural Center of the Philippines main theater.”