Portrait of an Artist as Filipino

Stephen Shey: Concert-Cultural Artist

Stephen Shey aims to make his mark in concert halls around the world wherever there is a Filipino who will listen to his growing virtuosity in violin. Easy enough since Filipinos are spread out in the Diaspora. At nineteen and arriving at the cusp of his passion for music, and since entering Longy's Music School in Cambridge, under the tutelage of Prof. Eric Rosenblith—Shey has performed for audiences in the East Coast, focusing on Philippine Classical Music, specifically, the kundimans. The kundiman is a passionate score full of longing etched in unrequited love. Stephen Shey carries his audience to the brink of emotional intensity underscored by a charismatic and mesmerizing performance.

Greeting a former music mentor, Glen Kwok, at a Philippine Embassy function.

At the request of the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC, Shey was among select artists invited during Philippine American Heritage Month to participate in a Friday Heritage Series. Indicative of grace under pressure, Shey gave scintillating performances to SRO audiences. Because the Embassy will not turn away an overflow of audience, Shey performed twice—a performance at The Carlos P. Romulo Hall and another at a packed conference room in the three-storey building at the heart of bustling Massachusetts Avenue's Embassy Row, just five blocks away from the White House.

Stephen Shey is an extraordinary ambassador of Philippine Music. How did he come upon these compositions? He jokes about his introduction to the piece, Hating Gabi (pronounced hah-ting gah-bee, Midnight Serenade) by Antonio Molina. At 12, he hated it. "And then it just grew on me…I decided it was quite beautiful after all." As a resident artist of QBd Ink, a theatre group in Washington DC, he was commissioned by the director to open a performance with a musical overture. The applause for the overture would be the cue for the cast to match their performance with the caliber of Stephen's playing.

But why focus on a repertoire of Philippine classical music? "I love Bach, Beethoven and Mendelssohn." He explains, "But to play this music by Philippine composers is …" He gropes for words and gestures helplessly. "This music speaks to me and for me at this time in my life."

Steve Shey with the grandniece of composer, Nicanor Abelardo, Louise Larraga and OOV editor

When he was 12, he asked his mother in all earnestness, "How do I become Filipino?" Last October, the staff at the Philippine Embassy informally conferred on Stephen Shey the title of Honorary Filipino Citizen.

Filipinos in the Diaspora have been wishing a long time for their music to resound in the universe. How far-reaching and how better than in the soaring passion of violinist, Stephen Shey!

Stephen Shey is preparing for a concert in Manila in early 2004.

 

< Listen to Stephen Shey's rendition of KATAKATAKA by Santiago S. Suarez (windows media player) >

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