Hiromi Uehara at her workshop, March 1, 2009. PI Jazz Festival. Rockwell, Metro Manila, Philippines.

Thank you for inspiring me to play the piano again. I’ve been neglecting it for a long time, being a full-time arranger now.

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I first heard of Hiromi and her music through good friend Karel Honasan, who lent me her CD back when she was still relatively unknown. Karel got to see her a lot during his stay at Berklee College of Music, Boston.

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A member of the audience asked how much time she spends practicing the piano in a day. Her answer went something like this: “I love the piano. People spend four to six hours on the Playstation and nobody minds them. If I spend the same time playing the piano, people say, ‘You work so hard!’ but nobody compliments the people who play Playstation”. Something to that effect. I couldn’t remember how she said it exactly. But that confirmed what I’ve been thinking about for the past few months - piano practicing shouldn’t be regarded as a chore. From this day on, the piano will be my Playstation. Though these days, I cannot afford to spend more than two hours a day on the instrument - most days it might even be less than that - I will still play.

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In the evening, Dex and I watched the concert at the Rockwell Tent, too. The tickets were sold out, and we didn’t get a chance to buy any. However, as serendipity allowed, we bumped into our friend Moses Aragones who had tickets with him, and the some people he was supposed to watch the concert with weren’t able to come. I loved the set of Hiromi with Sonic Bloom.

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In the meantime, back in my daily life, I am working on the musical score of two projects for the month of March.. One is an audio visual presentation about the Supreme Court, and the other is a short film by my good friend Trinka Lat. The AVP for the Supreme Court is exciting for me because I get to play with ideas involving the orchestra and Philippine Kulintang music. I’ve been wanting to do that for quite sometime. Let’s see how it goes. The short film by my friend is also an exciting project for me because it will officially be my first time to score a film. I’ve scored cartoons over the past few years, but never a film. Apart from those two, I’ll also be playing piano for Flow, the dance musical at the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), where my father Mel Villena is the musical director.

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