Ateneo de Manila College Glee Club

The Ateneo de Manila College Glee Club was established in 1921 and is the Philippines' very first university choir. They were the featured choir in Yuletide Evenings at Glorietta yesterday. Also featured were UP Voice Major and Tenor Ervin Lumawag and Saxophonist Januario Dulce. Jed Balsamo was again the pianist.

The show started with Dulce playing Christmas Song, accompanied by piano. By far, in my opinion, he has been the best instrumentalist featured in the free concerts at Glorietta. The second song then already featured tenor Lumawag singing Granada. He was also mush better than the previous tenor. He was more relaxed and even provided short intorductions to his songs. His rendition of Groban's When You Say you Love Me was very fluid.

The next song, O Holy Night, was initially sung by the tenor (still accompanied by the sax and piano) but the choir then entered a little later. The Glee Club then rendered the audience different Christmas and popular songs: Ding Dong Merrily On High, The First Noel, Fum Fum Fum, Carl of the Bells, African Noel, Vezzosi Augelli, El Guayaboso (where it was noticable that the rest of the choir at the back were not singing), Let's Do It, Jingle Bells, Diwa ng pasko, Pasko Na Sinta Ko, and Pasko Accapela Medley (which was a good vocal arrangement by them). The choir looked young and a little nervous at the start. They warmed up and performed more relaxedly as they went along.

All the featured performers then capped off the night's show with beautiful renditions of Have Yourself A Merry little christmas and A Merry Christmas. Another enjoyable free Christmas concert!

The fireworks display after the concert:

The tree at the Greenbelt 3 lobby:

Christmas tree display at Greenbelt 5:

:-)