Liturgical Music

Ena Maria Aldecoa sings in the entire liturgical music albums which the whole Bicolandia hears during Holy Masses, and especially during the Peñafrancia Fiesta. Hers is the beautiful and yet powerful voice featured in the estrofas of the Resuene Vibrante and Kun Yaon Saimo, to name a few. 

She performed as Soprano and Alto for Jubileo Sa Caceres, the music CD produced on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of the Archdiocese of Caceres (1951-2001) and was the featured soloist for “Alleluia”, “Mag-omaw”, and “Puso nin Simbahan” (with Joan Peconcillo and Mario John Amante).

She was the lead vocalist for the music CD, Gikan Sa Dios, Mass in Honor of Our Lady of Peñafrancia, which was recorded in 2010 in time for the Tercentenary of the Peñafrancia Devotion (1710-2010).

In 2018, she made history by becoming the first Filipino to give an art song recital at the Richard-Wagner-Festival in Bayreuth. In 2020, she returned to Germany to give yet another art song recital, this time as an artist-in-residence at the Brahms-Haus in Baden-Baden. This event was only the first in a series of Ena’s European performances late that year.

Ena serves as Chair of the Keyboard Department at the University of the Philippines College of Music since August 2015. She also is Artistic Director of the Art Song Academy Manila. She plays on a Steingraeber Grand.

She graduated with AB English and BM Piano, Universidad de Sta. Isabel; MM Piano and MM Voice, University of the Philippines; Professor, UP College of Music; Soprano and Concert Pianist; Member, Phil. Madrigal Singers; Former Member and Rehearsal Master, UP Concert Chorus.

By Jose Juan Francisco Marco Ragragio Valenciano

Prof. Ena Maria Aldecoa is a rare example of a person whose religion is music. I knew Ma’am Ena personally and was blessed to be her pupil in my days at the University of the Philippines College of Music. There, she taught me harpsichord and accompaniment. She passed on to me there the torch of music, which that arcane circle of elite artists institutionalized in Western Europe in the early 19th century. To this day, I hold with great pride that I had been made one of the torchbearers of that great spiritual tradition. Ma’am Ena passed on to me, and to my fellow colleagues there that studied under her, the thoughts and feelings of the composers of the great tradition of European classical music. She spread this gospel of “sincere” music that these masters upheld to us, to this backwater of a country, which is infested with corruption, immorality, disorder, and crime. I often use “sincere” as a keyword for this special kind of music because I think it is an apt way to define its personality. 

Ma’am Ena is certainly one who fully understands the virtue of “sincerity” in music, She is one of those rare people. I know this because I have observed that her primary focus in life is music. Some of us do music for other reasons – money, fame, adulation, politics, prestige, etc. But fewer do it only for the sake of itself. And I believe that is why people like Ma’am Ena aren’t easily understood. She has traveled all over Europe to refine this torch, something that very few of us here have attempted to do. 

I am honored to have been taught it by Ma’am Ena. Her devotion to music is uncompromising. She does not care for anything else as much as she does for it. I believe Bicol should be proud for having been able to produce a member of this arcane circle of the musical priesthood!

By Dr. Tom Frinta, Laureate Concert Group

Ena Maria Aldecoa comes across as a quiet, unassuming and most affable individual, her modesty concealing her vast professional knowledge and experience as an active musician. Besides English and Filipino she controls a high degree of fluency in German also singing with immaculate pronunciation in French, Spanish, Italian and Russian.

Distinction during her studies has always been one of her traits. One of her teachers remarked Ena is never satisfied with achieving 98%, she wants it all. Once singing a contemporary piece – the world premiere of “Ishmaela’s White World” – she traded her score against the full presence of her manifestation, something neither composer nor conductor had expected. Gifted with an incorruptible ear Ena sometimes already moans if the pitch is off just by a tad.

A career for the sake of glamorous fame has never been her ambition. Rather she is driven by the thought of understanding the great masters’ compositions in their historic vesture and communicating this wealth to her students.

One of her most dominating qualities is her expression, sheer unfathomable depths of content, easily rivaling some of the world’s most famous singers. It is not uncommon that the audience finds themselves in tears.

View Liturgical Songs by Ena Maria Aldecoa:

Featured are two Bicol liturgical mass songs from the album: Gikan sa Dios, a Commemorative Album of the 300th Anniversary of the Devotion to Our Lady of Peñafrancia. “Kun yaon saimo” is a communion song. “Uya an Oripon kan Kagurangnan” is an offertory song.