u.p. singing ambassadors stage two concerts

The University of the Philippines Singing Ambassadors (UPSA) will be staging two concerts this week.

The first concert will be staged on 28 November, Wednesday, 7:30pm, at the Philamlife Auditorium (United Nationas Avenue, Manila). Ticket prices range from P250 to P500. P250 tickets will be discounted at P200 for students with school identification cards.

The second concert will be staged on 30 November, Friday, 6:00pm at the Church of the Risen Lord, UP Diliman (P300 tickets w/ a 50% discount for students w/ ID). For details and inquiries, please call the following numbers: 9249378 and 09157135274. Tickets will also be available at the concert sites, the UPSA booths (UP College of Arts and Letters Bulwagang Rizal/Faculty Center and classroom buildings) and Sarabia Optical (UP Shopping Center).

UPSA is a performing group affiliated with the U.P. College of Arts and Letters.

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the university of the philippines singing ambassadors

The University of the Philippines Singing Ambassadors (UPSA) ALIW Awardee for Best Choir of 2002, is the University’s Official Performing Group for Choreographed Choral Music. It performs all types of choral music and includes Philippine folk and ethnic dances in its international repertoire. These they have presented in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the USA. It has reaped honors for the country by winning plum prizes in some of the world’s most prestigious choral competitions and festivals.

In August 2002, UPSA represented Arezzo (ITALY) and the PHILIPPINES in the 14th EUROPEAN GRAND PRIX FOR CHORAL SINGING (EGP). By winning the Gran Premio Citta’ di Arezzo, the dream prize for choirs and conductors worth their salt. UPSA is one of only four (4) Filipino choirs to have qualified in the EGP - vied for by Grand Prize Winners of the world’s top six (6) competitions the preceding year.

During the XLIX Concorso Polifonico Internazionale “Guido d’ Arezzo” in ITALY, considered the “Olympics” in choral singing, UPSA also garnered the First Prizes in the Polyphony (Mixed Choir) & Folkloric Categories.

In its 23 years of existence, the UPSA has graced many milestone events in the Philippine choral scene, appeared on television and radio, sang in weddings and concerts, visited orphanages, prisons, hospitals, and homes for the aged, and brought beautiful music to those who rarely had time for it. It has been featured in local and international magazines, commended by government officials and music experts, and brought home symbols of triumph and honor from international competitions. The UPSA, nevertheless, braces itself to yet more years of exciting and challenging work in the country and abroad.

The competitions they have joined in Europe were extremely tough, as they have always been, so the winnings did not come effortlessly. They won the Gran Premio Citta d’Arezzo, the dream prize of every choir and conductor, and their ticket as finalist to the 14th EUROPEAN GRAND PRIX FOR CHORAL SINGING, considered the most prestigious choral competition in the world. Under the masterful leadership of the conductor, Mr. Ed Manguiat, the UP Singing Ambassadors had to go through years of rigorous training in voice, expression, social awareness, character-building and mental aptitude. They dutifully rehearsed and trained, learning the hard way that the best performances require a total positive well-being within a person as well as within the group. Ed Manguiat painstakingly instilled a concept of character for each singer not to be admired because of his vocal calisthenics but rather, to be fondly remembered for touching a chord in one’s heartstrings.

The UP Singing Ambassadors is composed of ordinary UP students. Some are plucked out of inconspicuous dormitory rooms by friends who wished to audition for the Group just for fun or out of curiosity. For this group of non-Music majors many of whom didn’t read notes, their remarkable achievements amid formidable contenders only prove that unity, hard work, and the right attitude must go together with natural talent in order for them to attain a seemingly impossible goal.

u.p. human kinetics alumnus jr rebullida passed away

u.p. diliman college of human kinetics alumnus jr rebullida passed away hours ago due to heart and lung complications. he was twenty four (24). jr is lying in state at santiago funeral homes, 13 v. gomez street, san roque, marikina city (tel.no: 6459999).

jr is the son of u.p. political science department chair and professor maria lourdes g. rebullida. he was a member of the u.p. fighting maroons basketball team (team b) between 1999 and 2006.

please pray for the eternal repose of his soul.

butch dalisay in international herald tribune

Belatedly, Asia's literary scene comes of age

HONG KONG: By Donald Greenlees

When Xu Xi's first novel was printed in 1994, she thought she had finally broken down the barricades of the publishing houses. She felt she had entered an inner circle where, even if the writing was still hard work, the rewards of being printed and read would flow a little more easily.

She soon discovered that being published in English by a small printing house in her hometown, Hong Kong, did not ensure the interest of the handful of companies based in the United States and Britain that dominate global English-language publishing.

After that first novel, "Chinese Walls," set in the 1960s in a Hong Kong that was poor and crowded with raucous bars filled with GIs on leave from the Vietnam War, she went on to write five more. She even moved to New York in the hope that, somehow, proximity to international publishers might help open their doors.

"Publishers in New York and London were encouraging," she said. "But they didn't basically know what to do with a Hong Kong writer."

In October, that started to change. Xu's latest novel, "Habit of a Foreign Sky," made it onto the short list for Asia's first literary prize of real international standing.

Her gritty tales of the lives of Hong Kongers, free of the stereotypes in many of the Western accounts of the former British colony, had long been hailed by scholars, dissected in creative writing classes and popular with Hong Kong and Chinese-American readers.

But when she and four other authors were named as finalists for the Man Asian Literary Prize, international publishers suddenly took notice. The prize, which recognizes Asian novels unpublished in English, is to be awarded for the first time Saturday.

"Since I made the short list three publishers have called my agent - one from New York, one from London and one from Australia," she said. But her reaction was: "This is nice; isn't it about time?"

Many writers of Asian fiction, who have struggled for years to be acknowledged outside small audiences in their own countries, would endorse that sentiment.

But there are signs the Asian literary industry is starting to come of age, increasing the opportunities for many more Asian writers to gain international recognition.

International publishers and literary agents say they are seeking many more works in Asia to bring to English-language audiences. They are also looking for new voices and genres that go beyond what publishers call "scar" or "misery" literature - about life in poverty under repressive regimes - and capture the rapid social and economic transformation of the new Asia.

At the same time, they say Asia is building the infrastructure for a developed literary industry. They say it can be seen in the growth of international publishers opening regional offices to scout for talent and sell books in fast-growing English- and local-language markets; the emergence and greater importance of Asian literary festivals; and the numbers of Asian works being translated into Western languages.

"Until recently, you would have been hard-pressed to identify what I call a literary industry in Asia," said Peter Gordon, the editor of The Asian Review of Books and a publisher based in Hong Kong.

"But there are indications the industry has developed and now exists. There comes a moment where a number of distinct points gel into what you call an industry."

The consequences will be an increasing volume of works of fiction coming out of Asia in the years ahead amid an expanding market within Asia for fiction in both English and local languages.

Like the rest of the Asian story, China and India dominate the business calculus.

The British publisher Penguin, which opened a China office in late 2005, has recorded sales growth of 200 percent a year, according to Jo Lusby, the general manager of Penguin China, based in Beijing.

"It's a market we believe is underserved," Lusby said. "It's a very exciting market for us."

Penguin has been selling English-language titles in China and translations of popular children's stories. But the majority of consumers of books in English are no longer expatriates, she said. They are now middle-class Chinese.

At the end of this year, Penguin will also introduce its first Chinese translations of classic English literature under the Penguin logo in a deal with a state-owned publisher. It plans to bring out 30 new titles in this series a year.

Gordon, who runs Chameleon, a small publisher, and an online book seller in Hong Kong, said the consumption of fiction was matching the "exponential growth" of Asia's economies.

"When people have growing incomes, they start to buy CDs and they start to buy books," he said. "Increasing demand means people write more books and you have a virtuous cycle."

A prime motivation for international publishers to set up offices in the region is to find new authors. Late last year, HarperCollins signed a collaboration agreement with the People's Literature Publishing House and announced its first project: three Chinese novels to be translated into English.

In April, PanMacmillan started Picador Asia with the aim of acquiring three to four titles a year related to East Asia.

The decision to begin recruiting in China could pay off handsomely for Penguin with the signing of translation rights to a book by a 61-year-old retired Chinese academic who uses the pen name Jiang Rong. His "Wolf Totem" led China's best-seller list in 2004, selling two million copies in its legitimate edition and an estimated four million pirated copies.

Jiang, who based the book on his own experiences in Inner Mongolia in the 1960s, also made it to the short list for the Man Asian Literary Prize. The book, which Lusby described as a sharp departure from the bitter memoirs of early Communist rule that have come out of China in recent years, will be released in English in March.

Marysia Juszczakiewicz, a literary agent with Creative Work in Hong Kong, said the growing presence of international publishers in Asia was resulting in the discovery and translation of authors who might never have been noticed outside their own countries.

Until recently, Jiang "would probably not have been discovered because there are so few people looking," she said. "Before, publishers would not have been looking actively at best-seller lists in China and thinking whether that would have worked outside."

Juszczakiewicz, who represents Xu, said one effect is that foreign audiences are going to be exposed to a much wider range of authors and styles of fiction than they have seen in the past from much of Asia. She cited one of her own authors, Feng Tang.

"He is the Nick Hornby of China," she said. "He is very funny."

But China is fashionable now and, even so, only a few writers are likely to benefit.

Like writers elsewhere, most aspiring Asian novelists can look forward to the demoralizing combination of anonymity and financial hardship, said Jose Dalisay, a Filipino author.

Dalisay is also in the running for the Man Asian Literary Prize and did get calls from international publishers after his darkly comic book, "Soledad's Sister," made the short list. But he does not expect to be able to turn writing into a full-time living any time soon.

"I am always scrambling for jobs," he said. He juggles low-paid work teaching English at a university with part-time journalism and other writing assignments.

"The acclaim is there," he said. "The Philippines is a society that, strangely enough, values its writers and artists but hardly pays them anything."

2007 times higher education supplement (thes)-qs university rankings

2007 RANK 2006 RANK INSTITUTION NAME COUNTRY

1 1 HARVARD University United States
2= 2 University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom
2= 3 University of OXFORD United Kingdom
2= 4= YALE University United States
5 9 Imperial College LONDON United Kingdom
6 10 PRINCETON University United States
7= 7 CALIFORNIA Institute of Technology (Caltech) United States
7= 11 University of CHICAGO United States
9 25 UCL (University College LONDON) United Kingdom
10 4= MASSACHUSETTS Institute of Technology (MIT) United States

11 12 COLUMBIA University United States
12 21 MCGILL University Canada
13 13 DUKE University United States
14 26 University of PENNSYLVANIA United States
15 23 JOHNS HOPKINS University United States
16 16 AUSTRALIAN National University Australia
17 19= University of TOKYO Japan
18 33= University of HONG KONG Hong Kong
19 6 STANFORD University United States
20= 35= CARNEGIE MELLON University United States
20= 15 CORNELL University United States

22 8 University of California, BERKELEY United States
23 33= University of EDINBURGH United Kingdom
24 46= King's College LONDON United Kingdom
25 29= KYOTO University Japan
26 18 Ecole Normale Supérieure, PARIS France
27 22 University of MELBOURNE Australia
28 37 ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE France
29 42 NORTHWESTERN University United States
30 40 University of MANCHESTER United Kingdom

31 35= The University of SYDNEY Australia
32 54= BROWN University United States
33= 50= University of BRITISH COLUMBIA Canada
33= 45 University of QUEENSLAND Australia
33= 19= National University of SINGAPORE Singapore
36 14 PEKING University China
37 64= University of BRISTOL United Kingdom
38= 50= The CHINESE University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
38= 29= University of MICHIGAN United States
40 28 TSINGHUA University China

41 31 University of CALIFORNIA, Los Angeles (UCLA) United States
42 24 ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) Switzerland
43 38 MONASH University Australia
44 41 University of NEW SOUTH WALES Australia
45 27 University of TORONTO Canada
46 70= OSAKA University Japan
47 66 BOSTON University United States
48 69 University of AMSTERDAM Netherlands
49 43 NEW YORK University (NYU) United States
50 46= The University of AUCKLAND New Zealand

51= 63 SEOUL National University Korea, South
51= 32 University of TEXAS at Austin United States
53= 58= HONG KONG University of Science & Technology Hong Kong
53= 78 TRINITY College Dublin Ireland
55= 84 University of WASHINGTON United States
55= 79= University of WISCONSIN-Madison United States
57 73 University of WARWICK United Kingdom
58 44 University of CALIFORNIA, San Diego United States
59 17 LONDON School of Economics and Political Science United Kingdom
60 58= HEIDELBERG University Germany

61 96 Katholieke Universiteit LEUVEN Belgium
62 105= University of ADELAIDE Australia
63 86 DELFT University of Technology Netherlands
64 111= University of WESTERN AUSTRALIA Australia
65= 90= University of BIRMINGHAM United Kingdom
65= 98 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (MUNICH) Germany
67 82= Technische Universität MÜNCHEN Germany
68 102= University of SHEFFIELD United Kingdom
69 61= NANYANG Technological University Singapore
70 85 University of NOTTINGHAM United Kingdom

71= 61= DARTMOUTH College United States
71= 111= UPPSALA University Sweden
73 77 University of ILLINOIS United States
74= 56 EMORY University United States
74= 124= University of YORK United Kingdom
76 109= University of ST ANDREWS United Kingdom
77= 88 University of PITTSBURGH United States
77= 127 PURDUE University United States
79 111= University of MARYLAND United States
80= 121 University of LEEDS United Kingdom
80= 141= University of SOUTHAMPTON United Kingdom

82 53 VANDERBILT University United States
83 81 University of GLASGOW United Kingdom
84 90= LEIDEN University Netherlands
85= 60 CASE WESTERN RESERVE University United States
85= 116= FUDAN University China
85= 87 University of VIENNA Austria
88 176 QUEEN'S University Canada
89 95 UTRECHT University Netherlands
90= 99= PENNSYLVANIA STATE University United States
90= 118 TOKYO Institute of Technology Japan

92 102= RICE University United States
93= 54= University of COPENHAGEN Denmark
93= 181= University of MONTREAL Canada
95 48= University of ROCHESTER United States
96 170= University of CALIFORNIA, Davis United States
97= 133= University of ALBERTA Canada
97= 145 GEORGIA Institute of Technology United States
99 141= CARDIFF University United Kingdom
100 116= University of HELSINKI Finland

101 139 University of LIVERPOOL United Kingdom
102= 102= GEORGETOWN University United States
102= 108 National TAIWAN University Taiwan
102= 168= TOHOKU University Japan
105 39 University of GENEVA Switzerland
106 122 LUND University Sweden
107 211= University of COLORADO United States
108 155 MCMASTER University Canada
109 132 DURHAM University United Kingdom
110 130= University of VIRGINIA United States

111 172= MAASTRICHT University Netherlands
112= 128= NAGOYA University Japan
112= 204= University of WATERLOO Canada
114= 126 University of AARHUS Denmark
114= 75 University of BASEL Switzerland
114= 79= University of OTAGO New Zealand
117= 141= University of CALIFORNIA, Santa Barbara United States
117= 64= Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de LAUSANNE Switzerland
119 101 University of SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA United States
120 219= OHIO STATE University United States

121 105= University of SUSSEX United Kingdom
122 150= TEXAS A&M University United States
123 76 Université Catholique de LOUVAIN (UCL) Belgium
124 141= University of GHENT Belgium
125 180 NANJING University China
126= 105= HUMBOLDT-Universität zu Berlin Germany
126= 215= University of WESTERN ONTARIO Canada
128 119 Hebrew University of JERUSALEM Israel
129 133= NEWCASTLE University, NEWCASTLE Upon Tyne United Kingdom
130= 194 Technical University of DENMARK Denmark
130= 67 EINDHOVEN University of Technology Netherlands

132= 198= KOREA Advanced Institute of Science & Technology Korea, South
132= 93= Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie - PARIS VI France
134 224= University of ARIZONA United States
135 226= University of FLORIDA United States
136 128= KYUSHU University Japan
137= 195 University of ABERDEEN United Kingdom
137= 232= INDIANA University Bloomington United States
139 282= SIMON FRASER University Canada
140= 198= University of CALIFORNIA, Irvine United States
140= 109= University of ZURICH Switzerland

142= 187= University of MINNESOTA United States
142= 170= Universität TÜBINGEN Germany
144 219= Universität FREIBURG Germany
145 153 University of BATH United Kingdom
146 149 Freie Universität BERLIN Germany
147 228= University of LANCASTER United Kingdom
148 97 WAGENINGEN University Netherlands
149= 154 CITY University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
149= 99= Queen Mary, University of LONDON United Kingdom

151= 133= HOKKAIDO University Japan
151= 123 University of NORTH CAROLINA United States
151= 147= TEL AVIV University Israel
154 165= Université Libre de BRUXELLES (ULB) Belgium
155= 165= University of Science and Technology of CHINA China
155= 152 University of NOTRE DAME United States
157 72 Ecole Normale Supérieure de LYON France
158 140 CRANFIELD University United Kingdom
159= 163 MICHIGAN STATE University United States
159= 130= TUFTS University United States

161= 120 KEIO University Japan
161= 48= WASHINGTON University in St. Louis United States
163= 92 ERASMUS University Rotterdam Netherlands
163= 179 SHANGHAI JIAO TONG University China
165 201= Universität STUTTGART Germany
166= 266= University of CALGARY Canada
166= 138 VIENNA University of Technology Austria
168= 156= Universität GÖTTINGEN Germany
168= 82= MACQUARIE University Australia
170 291 HELSINKI University of Technology - TKK Finland

171= 238 University of DUNDEE United Kingdom
171= 222= Universität KARLSRUHE Germany
173= 207= University of BOLOGNA Italy
173= 232= University of GRONINGEN Netherlands
175= 124= University of MASSACHUSETTS, Amherst United States
175= 284= University of SAO PAULO Brazil
177= 448 University of CAMPINAS (Unicamp) Brazil
177= 219= University College DUBLIN Ireland
177= 215= RUTGERS, The State University of New Jersey United States

180= 190= University of READING United Kingdom
180= 158= WASEDA University Japan
182 172= Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule AACHEN Germany
183 197 Università degli Studi di ROMA - La Sapienza Italy
184 161= Université Louis Pasteur - STRASBOURG I France
185= 239= University of LEICESTER United Kingdom
185= 115 University of TWENTE Netherlands
187 252= University of ANTWERP Belgium
188= 333= University of CANTERBURY New Zealand
188= 177 University of OSLO Norway
190 258= University of SURREY United Kingdom

191 255= RENSSELAER Polytechnic Institute United States
192= 172= KTH, ROYAL Institute of Technology Sweden
192= 74 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) Mexico
194 190= University of BARCELONA Spain
195= 137 Radboud Universiteit NIJMEGEN Netherlands
195= 192= QUEENSLAND University of Technology Australia
197= 147= CHALMERS University of Technology Sweden
197= 181= KOBE University Japan
199 196 University of WOLLONGONG Australia
200= 257 University of CAPE TOWN South Africa
200= 146 RMIT University Australia