A Night When the Kundiman Came Alive
Arthur Espiritu: Mga Awit ng Pag-Ibig at Kundiman
There are concerts you attend just to spend an evening out, and then there are concerts that quietly rearrange something inside you. The Arthur Espiritu one-night-only show at Gallery MiraNila on May 14 was the latter. I walked into a 97-year-old heritage house with no idea just how much weight those walls were about to hold — and I left with songs stuck somewhere deeper than memory.
“The act of listening becomes an act of sustaining.” — Jared Echevarria
That quote from the program notes hit differently once I was seated. This was not just a recital. It was a quiet act of heritage preservation dressed up as a beautiful evening out.
The setlist was a carefully curated journey through the Philippine musical soul, spanning kundiman, love songs, patriotic works, zarzuela, and contemporary art songs. Fourteen pieces were spread across four parts, with an intermission that would eventually hold one of the evening’s most memorable moments.
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Arthur Espiritu is, simply put, a rare kind of voice. The program notes call him a spinto-tenor with a radiant tone. There is something about the way he phrases kundiman that makes you feel like the song is speaking directly to you, like the longing in the lyrics belongs to you too. A critic once wrote that when Arthur Espiritu sings, heaven opens up. I get it now.
Soprano Stefanie Quintin-Avila was a force in her own right. Praised for her stylistic range and expressive clarity, she reunited with Espiritu after their acclaimed 2024 collaboration, and that familiarity showed. Her voice carries warmth without sacrificing precision, and I found myself leaning forward every time she sang.
Pianist Najib Ismail anchored the evening with quiet authority. A longtime champion of Filipino composers with a performance career spanning Europe, Asia, and Australia, Ismail is the kind of accompanist who knows that his role is to hold the singers up, not compete with them. His playing was responsive, sensitive, and deeply musical. The piano never overpowered; it framed.
But perhaps the most memorable moment of the evening happened during the 20-minute intermission. Through our mutual friend Ms. Kimberly Tan, I had the privilege of meeting composer of “Kundiman ng Langit” Augusto Espino, who was seated among the audience that night. Later after the concert, Arthur Espiritu acknowledged Espino’s presence to the audience, and the room responded with a warmth that felt completely genuine.
If I had to pick a few pieces that lodged themselves into my chest permanently “Dahil sa Isang Bulaklak” was one. Leopoldo Silos wrote something so achingly beautiful about love and flowers that I almost felt embarrassed at how quickly it got to me. And “Kundiman ng Luha” closing out the night felt absolutely earned.
To be honest, I did not expect to feel as much as I did. I came expecting a lovely evening of old Filipino songs performed beautifully. I left feeling like I had been handed something I did not know I was missing: a direct, unmediated connection to a musical tradition that is still so very much alive. The kundiman is not a relic. In the hands of Arthur Espiritu, Stefanie Quintin, and Najib Ismail, it breathes, it aches, it laughs softly, and it loves without apology.
MiraNila held it all together the imperfect, beautiful, slightly-worn walls of a house that has endured so much, doing what it does best: giving Filipino culture a home. And meeting Augusto Espino face to face during intermission, knowing that this tradition is still in the hands of composers who are alive and present, that sealed it for me. If you missed this one, I genuinely feel bad for you. Keep your eye out for the next one. It will be worth it.
