Our Trainers and Formators

RESIDENT TRAINERS

JIOVANNI TABADA

JIOVANNI TABADA

Is a professional bassist. He received his basic music training at the Salvador and Pilar Sala Foundation in Cebu. He was awarded a full grant to study at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague in the Netherlands. There he completed his bachelor’s degree in 2007, and his Master’s degree in 2009 with distinction. He is now back in his hometown, Cebu, to contribute to its growing music scene. He serves as program director and music teacher trainer for Sistemang Pilipino, Inc. He finds great inspiration musically and spiritually as his team carries out its mission of bringing music education and performances to children and their communities.

MARK MELECIO

MARK MELECIO

Mark Axel Melecio was a member of the Cebu Youth Symphony Orchestra of the Salvador and Pilar Sala Foundation. He was assigned to play the French horn. He finished his Bachelor of Arts in Music at the University of Southern Philippines in March 2000. Shortly after his graduation, he was then offered to teach college students. He has been teaching music in PAREF-Springdale since 2001. He was a member of the Peace Philharmonic Orchestra Philippines. Furthermore, he has been a trainer of several choral groups such as the Regina Carmelli et Petrus Calungsod Chorus and the Ecclesia Cebuana Children’s Choir. He was a member of the Huni Choral Group and the Cebu Chamber Singers. Currently, he plays for the Cebu Philharmonic Orchestra and trains the Sistemang Pilipino choir members. He has been teaching music in PAREF-Springdale since 2001.

OUT-OF-TOWN TRAINERS

GRACIELA BRICENO

GRACIELA BRICENO

Has worked as a teacher and music program director for over ten years, having taught everything from violin and multicultural studies to English as a second language, for students in the United States, Kenya and Venezuela. Graciela currently serves as Program Director of the Josiah Quincy School Orchestra Program. She has both a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Music Education from Boston University and is also a graduate of the Sistema Fellows Program at New England Conservatory.

REGINA BUENAVENTURA

REGINA BUENAVENTURA

Regina Buenaventura graduated with a Bachelor of Music Degree in String Performance under Prof. Almita Vamos at the Bienen School of Music of Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois. At Northwestern University, she was a merit scholar and was part of Northwestern’s Delta Epsilon Iota Academic Honor Society. She has had chamber music coaching under Dr. Roland Vamos, Mr. Mathias Tacke of the Vermeer Quartet, and Dr. Russell Rolen of the Spektral Quartet. She has also participated in masterclasses taught by the famed concert artists and pedagogues Ruggiero Ricci, Alice Schoenfeld, Shmuel Ashkenasi, and William van der Sloot. Prior to her studies at Northwestern, she completed her pre-college musical training at the Music Institute of Chicago with Professors Almita and Roland Vamos. She has been a scholar for the arts of Standard Insurance, Inc., and is now their Artist-in-residence.

MIRACLE ROMANO

MIRACLE ROMANO

From Dipolog City, Miracle Romano is violinist/pianist with the Cebu Philharmonic Orchestra and a music teacher at the Romano Art and Music Studio. She is also a regular columnist at the Zamboanga Peninsula-based publication, Mindanao Observer. In 1995, Miracle won third prize for piano performance at the National Music Competition for Young Artists (NAMCYA) and was given a Young Achiever’s Award in 1996. A BA Journalism graduate from The International Correspondence School, she is presently pursuing a music diploma through the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM).

FACEBOOK

Sistemang Pilipino, Inc.

QUOTES

“An orchestra is a community where the essential and exclusive feature is that it is the only community that comes together with the fundamental objective of agreeing with itself. Therefore the person who plays in an orchestra begins to live the experience of agreement.”

José Antonio Abreu

"Rhythm is the internal pulse of the soul. Music sublimates the internal pulse of the soul and expresses it in a harmonious way - subtly, invisibly, and transmitted, without words, to other human beings. It is the art of making the will, soul and spirit agree to generate a message and to generate values that profoundly transform the spirit of the child who values the orchestra."

José Antonio Abreu

"Personality is the glitter that sends your little gleam across the footlights and the orchestra pit into that big black space where the audience is."

Mae West

"It's been a thrilling journey - I have had to really learn that an orchestra is an entity - it's a creature. I have been calling it the dragon and the conductor is the dragon tamer. And you just have to... ride and don't let go and you will be fine."

Tori Amos

"I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra."

Stephen Sondheim

"Art implies... ... a sense of perfection, therefore of excellence - a road to excellence. What is it that the orchestra has planted in the souls of its members? A sense of harmony, a sense of order implicit in the rhythm, a sense of the aesthetic, the beautiful and the universal, and the language of the invisible, of the invisible transmitted unseen through music."

José Antonio Abreu

"Harmony Whoever creates beauty by playing an instrument and generating musical harmony begins to understand from within what essential harmony is... human harmony."

José Antonio Abreu

"What is an orchestra? An orchestra is a community where the essential and exclusive feature is that it is the only community that comes together with the fundamental objective of agreeing with itself. Therefore the person who plays in an orchestra begins to live the experience of agreement. And what does the experience of agreement mean? Team practice - the practice of the group that recognizes itself as interdependent, where everyone is responsible for others and the others are responsible for oneself. Agree on what? To create beauty."

José Antonio Abreu

“It is evident that music has to be recognized as an element of socialization, as an agent of social development in the highest sense, because it transmits the highest values - solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. And it has the ability to unite an entire community and to express sublime feelings.”

José Antonio Abreu

“Whoever creates beauty by playing an instrument and generating musical harmony begins to understand from within what essential harmony is... human harmony.”

José Antonio Abreu

"An orchestra is a community where the essential and exclusive feature is that it is the only community that comes together with the fundamental objective of agreeing with itself. Therefore the person who plays in an orchestra begins to live the experience of agreement."

José Antonio Abreu

"Rhythm is the internal pulse of the soul. Music sublimates the internal pulse of the soul and expresses it in a harmonious way - subtly, invisibly, and transmitted, without words, to other human beings. It is the art of making the will, soul and spirit agree to generate a message and to generate values that profoundly transform the spirit of the child who values the orchestra."

José Antonio Abreu

ANNOUNCEMENTS