When the country’s most celebrated pianist, Cecile Licad, teams up with the very talented conductor, Gerard Salonga, you know you’re up for something grand. The event calls for a performance that would satiate and at a bigger scale, invigorate the audience’s appetite for classical music. In the evening of the 29th of June, the spectators of the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Nicanor Abelardo Hall got exactly that and more.
The Pianist’s Pianist was a one-night performance highlighting the renowned Filipina pianist Cecile Licad in collaboration with the steadily rising ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Gerard Salonga. Cecile Licad is the Philippines’ gem in classical music. A prodigy from the beginning, she made her debut at the age of 7 as she performed with the University of the East Student Orchestra. She then studied in the Curtis Institute of Music under the tutelage of Rudolf Serkin, Seymour Lipkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowsk. When she was 20, she won the grand prize in the much coveted Leventritt Competition which eventually launched her career as a soloist with the most prestigious orchestras around the world. Now 52 years old, she continues to inspire people all across the world with her sweeping and breathtaking piano techniques that leave every soul enthralled.
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