The 2015 performance season of the Cultural Center of the Philippines will mark its 46th anniversary this year. Among the highlights of 2015 are the launching of new arts festivals, premieres of original Filipino musicals, international shows, and other events.
Performatura: Spoken Work Festival 2015 celebrates literature by engaging it with music, theater, dance, film and visual arts. Poets and performers from all over the country perform their pieces in innovative productions that include engagements with new media. The Asian Composers League Festival and Conference showcases new compositions for both Western and traditional ensembles. The CCP also plays host to the 1st Manila Fringe Festival featuring experimental works from independent companies.
The Pasinaya Festival, considered the largest multi-arts festival in the country continues its partnership with the Metropolitan Museum, National Museum, Children’s Museum, Intramuros, Museums, Bahay Tsinoy and Gallery 1335 Mabini as it brings more than 100 shows to the public. The Art Jeepneys provide colorful shuttles to bring audiences the various venues in Manila. Pasinaya is one of CCP’s most popular and successful festivals together with the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival and Competition and the Virgin Labfest, a festival of unstaged plays.
Following the huge success of the 1st Andrea O. Veneracion International Choral Festival, Manila 2013 held in August 2013, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, as a Center for Choral Performance, will hold the 2nd Andrea O. Veneracion International Choral Festival, Manila in 2015. The CCP also hosts choral concerts from various groups throughout the year.
The opera season features some of the leading companies including the production of Tosca and opera events starring Andion Fernandez, Jeffrey Ching and the Hongkong Music Ensemble. Lovers of the Metropolitan Opera productions can look forward to seeing shows like La Boheme, Werther and Enchanted Island in HD at the Ayala Greenbelt Cinema.
Audiences can also watch out for the staging of Ballet Philippines’ Manhid: A Filipino Superhero Musical, and Tanghalang Pilipino’s Mabini, Mandirigma.
Be dazzled by the international staging of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as well as Second Life by the Belgium Circus.
CCP celebrates its 46th anniversary with events including the CCP Gala and art enthusiasts can watch out for the forthcoming productions from the CCP resident companies—the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, Ballet Philippines, Philippine Ballet Theatre, Tanghalang Pilipino, Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group, Bayanihan Philippine National Folk Dance Company, UST Symphony Orchestra, NAMCYA Resident companies, and the Philippine Madrigal Singers.
As in the previous series of successful concerts entitled Triple Threats, the next year features composers Ronnie Fortich, Vince de Jesus and Jessie Lucas in their best elements.
An exhibit on National Artist for Visual Arts BenCab’s works on paper dating from the 1970s to the present will be mounted at CCP, including his early prints that belong to the CCP Collection and recent prints that were done during his residency at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute. The BenCab Retrospective is a yearlong program that brings together other venues namely the National Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, and the Lopez Museum.
Likewise, a gathering of major works by renowned muralist and expressionist painter Jaime de Guzman from the late 1960s to the 1990s will be held in 2015. These include major works from the CCP and other institutional collections as well as drawings and studies that reveal the artist’s creative process. Also included are De Guzman ceramic works, a medium the artist took on after his visit to Mexico in the 1970s.
For more information, call CCP at (02) 832-1125 or visit www.culturalcenter.gov.ph.
