15 May 2006 – Philippine Ambassador to Moscow Ernesto V. Llamas reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs that the Philippine Madrigal Singers made an emotional start to their concert tour of Europe with two small but well-applauded performances in Moscow on 12 and 13 May 2006 as part of the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.

Led by choirmaster Mark Anthony Carpio, the 24-member group performed a serious and at times playful 130-minute program of Filipino 19 folk and religious songs at the DOM Cultural Center and a technically difficult 90-minute concert composed of 17 popular and obscure classical songs, including their eponymous specialty - madrigals from Italian renaissance - at the Moscow International Performing Arts Centre (MMDM).
 
Ambassador Llamas said the concert on 12 May 2006 at DOM, popular especially among Russian youth and in bohemian circles as a venue for avant-garde music and a bastion of counter culture, was the first in the Moscow capital by the Madz in probably 30 years. The audience in the easygoing bodega-like hall in central Moscow easily took a shine to the Madz, as the group is affectionately called, like Russians to borshch.

The second concert on 13 May 2006 at the 560-seat Chamber Hall of the three-year-old MMDM (formerly known as the Moscow International House of Music) was attended by a bigger audience. This more affluent audience was no less effusive in its admiration for the Madz. Both halls gave standing ovations - thrice in the case of MMDM.

"It was fantastic!" gushed Alexander Tsaliuk, the artistic director and conductor of The Hasidic A Cappella Moscow Men's Choir and the Moscow Oratorio Society after the concert at the MMDM. "I don't understand how they are able to communicate with each other with just slight eye movements," the Moscow Conservatory of Music PhD holder said about the group's trademark performance stance.

The four-minute applause before intermission at the MMDM - one of Moscow's most prestigious halls - was a sign of things to come. By the middle of the second half two-minute acclamations even for short numbers became standard. By the penultimate program piece - the little-known Russian folk song Veniki (The Brooms) by F. Rubtsov - the clapping had turned rhythmic - a theatre practice in Russia reserved for the final bow.

In accordance with tradition, the Madz performed one encore piece before filing out. The hall lights went on; the crowd, however, stayed put in their places and on their feet, clapping and shouting "Bravo!" After suspenseful moments the group returned to the stage to answer the ovation with a second song, a soulful rendition of the Beatles' "Let It Be," fixing smiles on many faces or pushing tears to shed in others.

One middle-aged lady who introduced herself to Ambassador Llamas as the wife of an official at the Moscow City Hall stepped up to the front of the stage to hand the choirmaster a traditional Russian hand-painted Easter egg as a token of her appreciation, while a child of 6 or 7 smilingly parted with a chocolate bar at the third standing ovation. "Please come back every year," the lady said in English.

"This was one of the best concerts of the season - and I mean it," said MMDM concert producer Dmitry Gordin, who is himself an established concert pianist and recording artist. "We hope we could have them again next time." The MMDM is best known to the Moscow public as the home of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia conducted by national artist and MMDM president Vladimir Spivakov.

The Madz launched its 11-city, seven-country European tour this year in Russia, which it visited in the mid-1970s and early 1980s in cultural exchanges launched as part of a cultural cooperation agreement signed by the Philippines and the then Soviet Union in 1974 prior to the formalization of relations in 1976.

On 14 May 2006, the Madz are scheduled to perform at the 4th Universe of Sound International Music Festival, which is organized by the premier Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Music, at 7pm at Studio 5 of the Radio Concert Hall in front of a live audience on Radio Kultura 91.6 FM with streaming Internet at www.cultradio.ru/online.html.

The Madz concerts, which will be accompanied by a series of media appearances that will feature the group and the Philippines in several dozen television and radio channels, are supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts with the cooperation of the Russian Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography and the Russian Foreign Ministry.  (Please refer to the accompanying photo release on this subject matter.)  END