![]() ![]() ![]() MCCARTHY: Tenor John Mojica is a founding member of the Ateneo Chamber Singers. VELASCO: I'm talking tickets sold out, 3000-seater and 2000-plus-seater concert halls sold out. He says Filipino concert goers defy any talk of recession and are flocking to box offices. MCCARTHY: Velasco looks to 2023 as a time of creativity unleashed. MCCARTHY: Sacred music is their specialty.ĪTENEO CHAMBER SINGERS: (Singing) His love will cherish me. And performing their last concert of 2022, these amateur singers sounded for all the world like professionals.ĪTENEO CHAMBER SINGERS: (Singing) O'er the fields we go, laughing all the way, (laughter), bells on bobtail ring, making spirits bright, (laughter), what fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight. Finally, face-to-face rehearsals resumed. MCCARTHY: The pandemic had consigned his internationally acclaimed ensemble to virtual arrangements that Velasco said were tedious. And suddenly, we were silenced by the pandemic. JONATHAN VELASCO: This is a country known for its choirs. He conducts the Ateneo Chamber Singers, composed of alumni and friends of Ateneo de Manila University. MCCARTHY: Having choirs back in action has been cathartic, says Jonathan Velasco. MCCARTHY: And roof-raising carols seem to say, as the emcee did, that this Yuletide tradition off the calendar the past two seasons. UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing) Haul out the holly, put up the tree. Amid resplendent trimmings, the Manila Symphony Orchestra helped the Peninsula Hotel relaunch its marquee holiday program, the Broadway tunes. JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: The holiday season has been all the sweeter this year as Filipinos revived traditions they have not seen since December 2019. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAROL OF THE BELLS") NPR's Julie McCarthy reports on how Filipinos marked this change and are looking with hope to the new year. But this winter, seasonal merrymaking is returning in a big way. Like many places around the globe, life in the Philippines was upended by the pandemic.
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