Plan W Philippines train music teachers and choir conductors to create and nurture vocal ensembles
by Leony R. Garcia
More than 30 music scholars from all over the Philippines gather together and sing in unison under the baton of Mark Anthony Carpio of Sing Philippines celebrating women empowerment and their common love for music.
The scholars were self-taught music advocates — music teachers and conductors — who met the first time, trained for one week and performed together at the PICC to the delight of VIPs, friends and relatives and media guests.
The concert was made possible by Diageo’s community investment program, Plan W, which aims globally to enable women to have the skills and resources to build better futures for themselves. Diageo believes that if women are empowered, they have more access to opportunities, thus their incomes increase, their families become healthier, and their children have greater access to education.
With the aim of empowering two million women across all socio-economic profiles by 2017, Diageo’s Plan W has been actively creating programs that nurture and develop the skills of women. Today it is implementing its program in the Philippines by creating a campaign geared towards the country’s passion: singing.
“Diageo Philippines, through Plan W, affirms the Filipino’s gift for music and gives its women the opportunity to celebrate life in the way the country knows best which is singing,” Diageo Philippines General Manager Jon Good said.
Filipinos are known for their musicality and are celebrated performers all over the world despite limited formal training. Grassroots music teachers and conductors struggle to raise the quality and standards of singing, which is further strained by the limited reputation, employment, and artistic growth opportunities. Plan W Philippines recognizes this and thus, in cooperation with Sing Philippines, provided teachers and choir conductors the proper training in organizing, sustaining, and nurturing choirs.
“Globally, Diageo knows that when women have access to learning and have an opportunity to pursue their passion, it creates a powerful ripple effect that impacts the society around them positively,” Good explained.
Plan W Philippines aimed to increase the competence, credibility, and long-term sustainable employment of women choir conductors and teachers in all regions of the country. The participants were women conductors and choral group teachers who have the potential and ability to teach music, but have limited opportunity, resources, and access to formal training and education. Through Plan W Philippines’ program, these women were provided with practical skills to organize and sustain choirs as they work towards uplifting the standards of choral singing in their respective communities.
The program is delivered by employing both immersion-type and experience-based training, supplemented with practice through coaching, cliniquing, and demonstration. It is divided into two stages.
During the first stage, the selected women teachers attended a week-long experience-based immersion program covering essential competencies. The workshops and coaching sessions were taught by Sing Philippines’ faculty and covered a range of topics that will introduce participants to the key critical skills needed to empower them to organize, lead, and develop purpose-focused and culture-building vocal ensembles in their community and schools. These include sessions on musicality and musicianship, choral conducting, teaching techniques, and organizational 
management skills. The first stage also entailed having the participants rehearse and perform as a women’s chorus to ensure that their training is more practical than theoretical.
The first stage culminated in the PICC concert on October 31 after which the participants enter the second stage. They are sent back to their communities in order for them to develop their own singing groups. Workshop trainers will visit the participants to observe the application of their learnings and to provide guidance as the women work with their choirs in their respective localities. This will culminate in a local concert, thus introducing the outcome to the local community. This reinforces the goal of empowering women to make a difference by nurturing the Filipino culture to their communities through the inclusive nature of ensemble music.
“Outside of the few urban centers of the country, there are very limited opportunities and venues to train choir conductors and music ensemble teachers,” said Mark Anthony Carpio, Artistic Director of Sing Philippines. “Through Sing Philippines, Plan W addresses this need and opportunity by equipping women music teachers and choir conductors with practical skills that they may apply to their singing groups. This will have a multiplier effect: through these women, young singers will be exposed to a choral experience and thus develop a life-long passion for it. In turn, the future conductors and teachers will come from the ranks of these passionately engaged singers as well.”
By teaching participants how to conduct choirs, Plan W Philippines not only empowers women, but also brings communities together. It not only creates skills, but also sparks the inner joy that drives its participants to passionately pursue their goals. This achieves the overarching goal of the program: to progress society.
About Sing Philippines and Diageo
Diageo is the first beverage alcohol company to sign the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles globally. To date, Plan W has empowered more than 115,000 women and trained more than 43,000 men across 16 countries, impacting more than 575,000 people. Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, J&B, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Gilbey’s and Guinness.
Sing Philippines is the brainchild of the late Andrea O. Veneracion, a Philippine National Artist for Music awardee and the founder of the Philippine Madrigal Singers. With the belief that there would be harmony and a shared national spirit if every Filipino sang in a choir, she embarked on provincial outreach tours to conduct workshops for self-taught music teachers and conductors. The aim was two-fold: aside from developing higher standards in singing, the guiding objective was to encourage the innately-musical Filipinos to join choirs.
Andrea Veneracion’s successor, Mark Anthony Carpio, continues with the mission of developing choirs, conductors, and singers all over the Philippines. Sing Philippines pursues the vision of teaching one singer, one choir, and one conductor at a time until the whole country would be singing together.
