Pianist Cecile Licad Is a National Treasure
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Cecile Licad with Sen. Loren Legarda after the Met concert on March 19, 2024.
In the audience were music lovers who saw her formal debut at the Philamlife Theater at age seven, actor and visual artist Ivi Avellana Cosio and columnist Marivic Rufino, among others.
Cecile Licad during her Philamlife Theater debut at age 7 in 1969.
Rufino described her interpretation of the Tchaikovsky warhorse as simply “spellbinding.” Cosio raved over the new PPO music director: “Brahms Symphony No. 2 was sublime. I have never heard the Philippine Philharmonic play so excellently and, of course, the reason is Maestro Nowak in full control. As for soloist Licad, I understood what she meant by being able to be free! Her rendition of the Tchaikovsky was brilliant and all hers. I heard notes I had never heard from other performances of this concerto. I can’t remember who said this—I’m paraphrasing here— ‘I play exactly the same notes as the other pianists, but it’s the pauses between the notes that make the difference.’ As for her encore, her Widmung by Schumann (dedicated to the late Nedy Tantoco) was so touching, (Francisco) Buencamino’s Hibik ng Puso was very personal, and Chopin’s Minute Waltz was probably only 45 seconds long! I must also mention the rapport and respect between Licad and Maestro Nowak! Bravo!”
Cecile Licad at a press conference at the Tantoco home
Licad herself was stunned by the new PPO music director Nowak and the orchestra.
Cecile Licad during the curtain call with conductor Gregorz Nowak at the Manila Metropolitan Theater last March. (Photo by Kiko Cabuena)
“We were so super synchronized at the concert. It was a wonderful collaboration with the new music director of the PPO. I loved Maestro Nowak’s rehearsal process. It made the performance much more fun and enjoyable. The PPO that night was in top form.”
Nowak, for his part, said working with Licad was an exhilarating musical experience. “She’s a brilliant pianist with perfect technique and command of the instrument, as well as a passionate musician whose interpretations move the orchestra and the audience. Our orchestra eagerly and enthusiastically joined her deeply profound interpretation of this masterwork. We look forward to performing with her and to participate in her musical creations as often as possible.”
Then he pointed out the need for a new piano for the orchestra.
“Licad’s art is one more reason we need to have a superb quality Steinway piano. We will apply for a budget to get one. When we get the right piano, we could present Licad with the full spectrum of her extremely rich palette of tone and color.”
On her latest interpretation of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1, which she, at 21, performed with the Chicago Symphony under Sir Georg Solti, the pianist talked about how she likes starting from scratch.
“I don’t like listening to other recordings. I start from scratch as though I am performing it for the first time. I study the notes carefully, including the ones in between, and from there I work on my own interpretation. After preparing technically, I rewind the concerto in my mind and prepare to tell a story to my audience. After all, I compare performing to telling a story. My audience should be able to follow me, and that is the reason I try very hard to communicate to my audience and not just the notes through my hands. My entire body should help me tell a story. I like to make music flow in all parts of my body and on to my audience. I experiment with what will work and what will be effective in communicating to my audience. Even if I have performed the concerto many times, I prepare as though I’d play it for the first time.”
On the month of her birthday, she remembered her late father, Dr. Jesus V. Licad, who was the epitome of discipline. Her father would wake her up at 4 a.m. to start her piano practice before going to her regular classes at Poveda school.
Cecile Licad with her late father, Dr. Jesus V. Licad and former CCP president and National Artist for Music, the late Lucrecia Kasilag.
Her mother, Rosario Buencamino Licad, is the pianist in the family. At age two, the young Licad was an attentive watcher while mother was giving piano lessons to her regular students. It didn’t surprise everyone when she started reading notes at age four ahead of her older brothers Winston and Albert who were also taking piano lessons.
On her seventh month of pregnancy with Cecile, Mrs. Licad remembers attending an evening of music-making with friends of Dr. Licad who were fellow surgeons at the Philippine General Hospital. They listened to Spanish songs while a violin prodigy rendered violin favorites. Also, part of the music soiree was National Artist for Music Felipe Padilla de Leon who delivered a short lecture on music appreciation. In that soiree, Mrs. Licad played her uncle Francisco Buencamino’s Larawan.
In her book, My Daughter Cecile, Mrs. Licad wondered if attending all those music soirees affected the baby in her womb. Dr. Licad believed so, as he was always playing Beethoven symphonies in his magnetic tape recorder while the young Licad was growing up.
The pianist recalled: “I grew up listening to Beethoven’ s Third Symphony so much so that when I was asked, (at age six) what my favorite music was, I promptly answered The Eroica of Beethoven.”
The shifting of roles for mother and daughter happened as she was ushered into early adulthood. “Midway into my teens, she became not just my mother. She evolved into my friend, my confidante, my secretary, my cook, my messenger (she took care of house bills), my manager (she decides what engagements I can accept outside the school) and my PR (she made sure my latest little achievements are known to the media). I suppose she was the first one who would know about my teenage crushes without my directly confiding to her.”
What followed were life changing transitions in the life and times of the celebrated pianist.
She joined the celebrated circle of Rachmaninoff in the roster of soloists of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Maestro Eugene Ormandy.
“I was very young when I worked with that legendary maestro. When I was told he had worked with Rachmaninoff himself, the more I was thrilled. It was a special honor to be soloist of Maestro Eugene Ormandy in my late teens. The first time I visited him, the first thing he told me was that he had a Filipino helper. I was his soloist in Variations on A Theme by Paganini.”
A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Merit from President Corazon C. Aquino in 1991 and the Pamana ng Lahi award from President Benigno Aquino III in 2016, Licad became the first Filipino to receive the Leventritt Gold Medal in New York, the same award that went to Van Cliburn and Gary Graffman (now known as the teacher of the celebrated Yuja Wang).
Cecile Licad and family with former President Corazon Aquino during the conferment of her Presidential Medal of Merit in 1991.
The pianist is also the first Filipino soloist of the London Philharmonic under Andre Previn to receive the Grand Prix du Disque (orchestra category) from the Chopin Society of Poland.
Earlier, she was soloist of the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Claudio Abbado and Sir Georg Solti, National Symphony Orchestra under Mstislav Rostropovich, the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, the London Symphony Orchestra under Kurt Masur, among others.
A piano soloist at age seven with a debut at the Philamlife Theater, Licad has shared her talents in nation-wide outreach concerts since age 14 in Zamboanga City, Dumaguete City, Iloilo City, Legazpi City, Naga City Davao City. Nueva Ecija, Tuguegarao City, Baguio City and Roxas City, among others.
On the day Licad arrived in New York after her ecstatically received March 19 concert at the Met in Manila, the foremost Filipino pianist paid tribute to the Italian piano icon Maurizio Pollini, who died on March 23 in his Milan home.
“I admired Maurizio Pollini a lot,” said Licad.
Both Pollini and Licad recorded for legendary conductor Claudio Abbado, along with the piano icon from Argentina, Martha Argerich.
Both Pollini and Argerich are past winners of the Chopin Competition in Poland.
“She’s a brilliant pianist with perfect technique and command of the instrument, as well as a passionate musician whose interpretations move the orchestra and the audience.”
Licad was once invited to sit in the jury of the Chopin Competition in the 1990s, but the jury deliberations fell on the day of her engagement with the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
Recalled Licad: “Apparently Pollini had to have six strong espressos before he played, and he splashed his face with ice water. That was his ritual. He was Claudio Abbado’s best friend and favorite musical partner. I was very lucky because at that time, Maestro Abbado only performed with a small handful of soloists. That I was one of them was a great honor I will never forget!”
Pollini’s friendship with Abbado started as both of them were like-minded left-wing idealists. They explored radical ways of bringing classical music to factory workers. Another project of Abbado and Pollini was a series of concerts at La Scala for employees and students.
Like Pollini, Licad enjoyed performing not just for Metro Manila’s elite audiences, but also for teachers, farmers and fisherfolk of the Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.
Over the years, I have brought the pianist to different outreach destinations in the country, wanting to give my friends their first Licad experience.
In 2002, while preparing for Licad’s recital at St. Paul University in Tuguegarao City, I took a quick bus ride to Ilagan City in Isabela to ask the poet-priest Paco Albano to watch the concert. Although he had a few of her CDs, he had never seen Licad in a live performance.
The good priest emailed me after the concert:
Dear Pablo,
Grace and peace!
I hope all is well with you and family.
Thank you for snatching me to experience a Cecile Licad recital.
Quite an experience, I tell you!
Surely God has consecrated her hands to play music, especially that of the classical masters.
In playing the masters, Cecile is a musician who makes one believe that the world is made of sound—sometimes as impromptu as a surprise, sometimes a waltz, sometimes nocturne, sometimes scherzo, or whatever great art rightly tells us.
Indeed, her music, like life, is about possibilities.
Who was playing that night? Cecile the piano, or the piano Cecile. I think it was the piano that brought out Cecile the music, especially in the nature of mysticism of the two legends of St. Francis (Liszt).
The music overflowed from her mouth, her eyes, her entire body, yes, into me/us. And was I myself playing Cecile and the piano?
The encores were revealing. Cecile was not only great with the big scores, but also with the ditties. She reminded me of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda’s Odes Elementales. The poet makes yellow birds, chestnuts, tomatoes, watches look extraordinarily beautiful.
Cecile is the Pablo Neruda of Music. There is nothing prosaic in this world unless we make it so.
Unlike the God-distracted nun who gave dos palabras, I didn’t think of God in my tonal center.
God was humble that night. I imagine he followed the rules of/for concertgoers, relaxed in silence and head music outside holding centers. And it was good.
Sincerely,
Fr. Paco
Meanwhile, feminist and political activist Princess Nemenzo who raved over the March 19 Met performance said, “She should be named National Artist for Music! She has represented Filipino artistry and excellence over decades on the world stage, until the present, and manifested as well Filipino women’s capacity for achieving their best.”
She might as well be echoing the distinguished New York-based music lecturer David Dubal in his radio show The Piano Matters. She referred to Cecile Licad as “the great Filipina piano artist who has perhaps the largest technical equipment and musical imagination of any living pianist.”
The street where Licad used to live in Quezon City is a cross-section of the haves and have-nots. On one side are the unfenced makeshift houses and the street urchins huddled in the corner store, a scene straight from Lino Brocka’s Jaguar.
Cecile Licad will surely go down in the country’s history as the youngest pianist to enthrall Philippe Entremont, Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider and Seiji Ozawa — without trying too hard.
The street where she lived will surely be remembered, too.
Here is the official video of Cecile Licad’s March concert in Manila:
Pablo A. Tariman contributes to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star, Vera Files and The Diarist.Ph. He is author of a first book of poetry, Love, Life and Loss – Poems During the Pandemic. He was one of 160 Asian poets who made it in the anthology, The Best Asian Poetry 2021-22 published in Singapore. Born in Baras, Catanduanes, he has three daughters and six grandchildren.
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