In its 5th season after its first concert at a hospital in this Red Sea city, the Serenata Choir sang its way into the hearts of a jam-packed audience at the American International School of Jeddah Friday night. As in its past concerts, the children's choir received hearty rounds of applause and a standing ovation at the finale after belting out medleys of upbeat and nostalgic songs. The children from several Filipino schools in Jeddah were met with a hushed silence from the audience, which included Filipino and foreign diplomats, as soon as they entered the stage and sang The Music of Life, a Latin rock number that compares life to music. With that opening number in a repertoire of 14 songs, the children sang before a mixed audience as dusk descended on the city up to the late hours of the night with no one in the audience seeming to want the curtain to fall. Aside from the opening number, the repertoire consisted of Jubilate Deo, Panis Angelicus, Firefly, Dreams that Children Dream, The Bells, Seasons of Love, Listen to the Rain, Disney Dazzle, Blue Suede Shoes, When I Fall I Love and Please Mr. Postman. As last year, the Serenata Choir was joined Friday night by the two-year-old Serenata Chamber String Orchestra that played – with violin and cello – nostalgic medleys of songs once-popularized by Filipino trio APO Hiking Society, the enduring Tagalog songs Buhat and May Bukas Pa, Pinagtagpi-tagpig Himig, upbeat Beatles songs and My Favorite Things. Also supporting this year's Serenata concert, billed as In High Spirits, were the Jeddah-based young singers Sonny Austria, Jeanette G. Cerbito and Ernest Troyss B. Pilapil. Austria and Cerbito performed a duet of the song Last Night of the World, an excerpt from the world-renowned stage musical Miss Saigon. The curtain fell after a medley of the songs You'll Never Walk Alone and I Believe, the final number sung by the choir and accompanied by the string ensemble. This year's Serenata concert was chaired by Charo Y. Hipos under the musical direction of Syvia de los Santos, one of Serenata's three founding members. The program was choreographed by Cezzar Santos and emceed by Ahjid Sayas. Kiel Erida was program director. The concert could have had Tina Monson Palma of the ABS-CBN television network in Manila as special guest but she was not allowed to enter Jeddah for some technical reasons. She went straight to Qatar, her second destination, organizers said. Although a nonprofit organization, Serenata has been performing since 2005 in a land not always friendly to orchestras in its desire to help marginalized sectors of Philippine society. This year, Serenata will use funds raised from ticket sales and sponsors to help four Filipino students from poor families continue their studies. In an interview with the Saudi Gazette, de los Santos said Serenata also tries to rise up to the challenges it sometimes faces. At times, she recalled, group members have had to spend money from their own pockets when the group has fallen short of funds and cannot find sponsors just to be able to go ahead with the yearly concert. “I remember during the first season in 2005, we were supposed to hold the concert here at the International American School of Jeddah,” she recalled. “But at the last moment, we were asked to cancel the show, so we held it later at the Saudi German Hospital.” The following year, she added, the group could not find a place to perform. “We tried to hold it at Effat College, but we could not get permission to hold the concert there,” she said. The group was able to hold the concert that year at Al-Waha Hotel. In the third year, the concert was held in the open air at an international school but the show was interrupted by planes flying overhead. “Now things are getting better and we hope we can send more students on scholarships – and that is our dream,” she said
