2nd NATIONAL MASTERCLASS FOR CHORAL CONDUCTORS
at the 1st Regional Convention for Visayas & Mindanao
University of the Visayas, Colon Street, Cebu City
19-22 November 2009
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Monsignor Rodolfo E. Villanueva
Since Vatican II gave increased importance to music of the local church, Monsignor Rodolfo E. Villanueva, head of Cebu’s Sub-commission on Sacred Music, has been supplying the Vis-Min area with music for the Catholic liturgy. But Cebuanos in general know him simply as Fr. Rudy.
Ordained in 1963, a graduate of Cebu’s San Carlos Major Seminary, he proceeded to Graduate studies in English Literature at Santo Tomas University, and two years after received a scholarship from Serra International, which took him to the State University in Minnesota where he earned a BM in Piano and Master’s in Music Composition. His years as accompanist for the Schola Cantorum at the seminary and for the Pro Musica Antiqua and the composite chorus at University very much shaped his musical interests. Thus, following his studies, he has composed mostly choral and solo vocal music, while coaching quite a few Cebu choral groups. To date, book publications and sound recordings of his music involve singing, while an extended work-in-progress is a theater-piece tentatively called Leon Kilat: A Cebuano Opera.
A related interest has been helping the Visayan choir repertoire to grow if only in the more people-friendly vein, for the moment anyhow – which is the reason he co-founded the annual Cebu Popular Music Festivals in 1981 with then-Governor Eduardo R. Gullas. Thus his two-volume collection of choral arrangements (a third is under preparation) focuses on old and new Cebuano carols, while aiming for the preservation of the old harana and love song. While the series is called Handumanan (for ‘Remembrance’), it is also the only vehicle so far of original Villanueva choruses or those of other songwriters needing choral settings for their material. Widely used by church musicians these many years are his vernacular collections: Cancionero Cebuano, Twenty-Four Masses, Salterio Cebuano, and the Festival Series (3 volumes). A volume titled Melodies of Carmel is a largely a collection of his religious songs in English.
Fr. Rudy’s interest in theater is an offshoot of his work at the San Carlos Seminary College, where he has taught English and music from 1969 to the present. His musical highlights over the years include writing the 40-minute ballet Fate of the Unprepared, commissioned by the Las Piñas Bamboo Organ Festival and first performed by Leopold Oehms (bamboo organ) and Rey Gillamac (piano), and presented by the CCP Dance Company, choreographed by Alice Reyes. The visit of Pope John Paul II to Cebu was a special highlight; it brought the province’s music aficionados together in a chorus of 5,000 for the Pope’s culminating Mass. A triple effort came with the commission to write ‘something for Visayans’ to celebrate the Beatification of Blessed Pedro Calungsod, Filipino Martyr hailing from the Visayas, whose Cause had been promoted by Cebu Archdiocese. The result was Scenes From a Martyrdom, a full-length musical – in English ‘for better global appeal,’ it was said. Book, music/lyrics, and stage direction were by the same. Yet another musical titled Therese went literally farther with performances in Davao City, and with its message of a not-uncommon way to personal holiness, a.k.a. The Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux. And in 2007, T.S. Eliot’s dark-hued Murder in the Cathedral became a sprightly musical ass ‘refurbished’ with Fr. Rudy’s music/lyrics and performed by members of the Cebu clergy and seminarians. An assortment of One-Act musicals and straight plays completes the data on Fr. Rudy, the Cebuano musician.
For books of fiction in English that he also published all this while, Father Rudy assigned authorship to an equally fictional persona – one who, it seems, also did rather well for himself. As ‘Renato E. Madrid’ he won many a literary distinction in such secular venues as the ‘old’ Free Press, Graphic, and Midweek magazines. Southern Harvest, his first collection of stories, won the National Book Award while each of his other books was short-listed for the same Prize. Although Madrid’s book publisher is the Ateneo de Manila University Press, the out-of-the-ordinary launching in Manila of his novel Mass for the Death of an Enemy, in year 2000, was hosted (i.e., paid for) by National Artist for Literature Mr. Nick Joaquin, who also had it on record once that ‘of the two discoveries of which I am most proud, one was Renato Madrid…’
The 2003 Congress of UMPIL (Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas) gave Fr. Rudy its honorific Gawad Balagtas, and the following year the UP (Diliman) voted him Fellow for English Fiction. In what is admittedly his second ‘field of dreams,’ as in his music-making, Fr. Rudy Villanueva continues to be fired by an energy not guaranteed most 69-year-olds. More commonly, what does not kill you will make you old.
Ordained in 1963, a graduate of Cebu’s San Carlos Major Seminary, he proceeded to Graduate studies in English Literature at Santo Tomas University, and two years after received a scholarship from Serra International, which took him to the State University in Minnesota where he earned a BM in Piano and Master’s in Music Composition. His years as accompanist for the Schola Cantorum at the seminary and for the Pro Musica Antiqua and the composite chorus at University very much shaped his musical interests. Thus, following his studies, he has composed mostly choral and solo vocal music, while coaching quite a few Cebu choral groups. To date, book publications and sound recordings of his music involve singing, while an extended work-in-progress is a theater-piece tentatively called Leon Kilat: A Cebuano Opera.
A related interest has been helping the Visayan choir repertoire to grow if only in the more people-friendly vein, for the moment anyhow – which is the reason he co-founded the annual Cebu Popular Music Festivals in 1981 with then-Governor Eduardo R. Gullas. Thus his two-volume collection of choral arrangements (a third is under preparation) focuses on old and new Cebuano carols, while aiming for the preservation of the old harana and love song. While the series is called Handumanan (for ‘Remembrance’), it is also the only vehicle so far of original Villanueva choruses or those of other songwriters needing choral settings for their material. Widely used by church musicians these many years are his vernacular collections: Cancionero Cebuano, Twenty-Four Masses, Salterio Cebuano, and the Festival Series (3 volumes). A volume titled Melodies of Carmel is a largely a collection of his religious songs in English.
Fr. Rudy’s interest in theater is an offshoot of his work at the San Carlos Seminary College, where he has taught English and music from 1969 to the present. His musical highlights over the years include writing the 40-minute ballet Fate of the Unprepared, commissioned by the Las Piñas Bamboo Organ Festival and first performed by Leopold Oehms (bamboo organ) and Rey Gillamac (piano), and presented by the CCP Dance Company, choreographed by Alice Reyes. The visit of Pope John Paul II to Cebu was a special highlight; it brought the province’s music aficionados together in a chorus of 5,000 for the Pope’s culminating Mass. A triple effort came with the commission to write ‘something for Visayans’ to celebrate the Beatification of Blessed Pedro Calungsod, Filipino Martyr hailing from the Visayas, whose Cause had been promoted by Cebu Archdiocese. The result was Scenes From a Martyrdom, a full-length musical – in English ‘for better global appeal,’ it was said. Book, music/lyrics, and stage direction were by the same. Yet another musical titled Therese went literally farther with performances in Davao City, and with its message of a not-uncommon way to personal holiness, a.k.a. The Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux. And in 2007, T.S. Eliot’s dark-hued Murder in the Cathedral became a sprightly musical ass ‘refurbished’ with Fr. Rudy’s music/lyrics and performed by members of the Cebu clergy and seminarians. An assortment of One-Act musicals and straight plays completes the data on Fr. Rudy, the Cebuano musician.
For books of fiction in English that he also published all this while, Father Rudy assigned authorship to an equally fictional persona – one who, it seems, also did rather well for himself. As ‘Renato E. Madrid’ he won many a literary distinction in such secular venues as the ‘old’ Free Press, Graphic, and Midweek magazines. Southern Harvest, his first collection of stories, won the National Book Award while each of his other books was short-listed for the same Prize. Although Madrid’s book publisher is the Ateneo de Manila University Press, the out-of-the-ordinary launching in Manila of his novel Mass for the Death of an Enemy, in year 2000, was hosted (i.e., paid for) by National Artist for Literature Mr. Nick Joaquin, who also had it on record once that ‘of the two discoveries of which I am most proud, one was Renato Madrid…’
The 2003 Congress of UMPIL (Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas) gave Fr. Rudy its honorific Gawad Balagtas, and the following year the UP (Diliman) voted him Fellow for English Fiction. In what is admittedly his second ‘field of dreams,’ as in his music-making, Fr. Rudy Villanueva continues to be fired by an energy not guaranteed most 69-year-olds. More commonly, what does not kill you will make you old.
