BEING home to highly-talented rondalla artists, Silay City is set to host the country’s biggest traditional music festival that will gather hundreds of best rondalla and plucked string musicians from across the globe.
Dubbed “Cuerdas sang Paghiliusa (Strings of Unity),” the nine-day International Rondalla/Plucked String Music Festival to be held on November 3 to 11 this year is seen to put Silay City on the world map.
Mayor Mark Golez, who led the memorandum of agreement signing with National Artist for Music Ramon Santos at the city’s cultural and Civic Center Wednesday, February 21, said the international event would surely boost the tourism industry of Silay.
He said this is the first time the city will host an international event.
“Silay City as well as Negros Occidental will be on the map,” Golez said, adding that “this is a big challenge I take which the people here would also love to accept.”
The International Rondalla/Plucked String Music Festival was initiated in 2004 by the National Music Committee of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
The festival was conceived as part of the Many Musics Action Program launched by the International Music Council in Uruguay in 2003 in the bid to promote musical diversity.
Now on its fifth edition, it will bring in about 300 Rondalla and string musicians from China, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Uganda, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
The first four editions were held in Naga City (2004), Dumaguete City (2007), Tagum City (2011), and Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila (2014). Abroad, it was held in Taiwan in 2015.
“This year, we hope to undertake the festival here in Silay because of the city's uniqueness and identity. It is a best place for such an event given its musical heritage,” Santos, the festival director, said.
Santos, president of the Musicalogical Society of the Philippines, said the Kabataang Silay Rondalla Ensemble has been a participant of local and international festivals.
Silay and its environments are also the breeding ground of many musical prominent artists like Conchita Gaston, Isang Tapales and Jovita Fuentes, among others, he said.
“The 5th International Rondalla Festival is looming to be a truly huge undertaking. There will be more than 20 groups of artists who will be presenting their own music, repertoire and styles of performance,” Santos added.
Among the highlights of the week-long music festival include outreach performances among schools, orphanages, hospitals and even prisons in Silay as it aims to share the gift of music to marginalized sectors.
A new experience in this year’s festival is the performances in the city’s heritage and ancestral houses.
There are also lectures, conferences, workshops and exhibitions highlighting the musical culture and Rondalla tradition of Silay.
Santos said the festival is also aimed to provide a venue and forum for exchange of musical knowledge and discovering hidden treasures in the folk and modern traditions of people from different parts of the globe.
“Its concept is to invite different plucked string musicians to participate in the quest for a common medium of expression in the spirit of unity, understanding and peace,” he added.
Golez thanked Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. for extending P1 million as financial support as he disclosed that the city government needs at least P7 million for the festival hosting.
Other city officials also attended the signing rites witnessed by the mayor’s parents Jaime and Tess, Asenso Silay Foundation president Dolly Lopez, Provincial Tourism Officer Christine Mansinares, and Negros Press Club president Renato Duran, among others.