Tuned bamboo is used by percussionists to spur the proud, pulsing rhythms of the Philippine Madrigal Singers at Frankfurter Buchmesse’s 2025 opening ceremony. Image: FBM
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘The Power of Words To Build What Is Just’
Peopling the air with disruptive tone clusters worthy of Krzysztof Penderecki and the lush, tropical sway of Darius Milhaud’s L’homme et son désir, the Philippine Madrigal Singers stole the show on Tuesday evening (October 14) at the 77th Frankfurter Buchmesse’s opening ceremony.
In a ncar-capacity Harmonie Hall at Messe Frankfurt’s Congress Center, the black-outfitted vocal ensemble, at least 19-singers strong, and its three bamboo-percussion artists opened and closed the event with radiant dissonance and infectious rhythms, sopranos operating in crowd-chatty nuance over the baritones’ profound bottom notes.
Refreshed with far less talk and much more music, verse, and light, the annual opening-ceremony program this time was a spirited meeting of the cultures, from recorded sounds of the archipelagoes’ maritime jungles to incantations and soul-scrubbing music.
Between that beginning and end of the evening, there were brief speeches, verse recitations, and one energizing electronica performance complete with a commanding contemporary theramin-like performance by musician Tmothy Roth, based on the voices of the madrigal singers.
‘Three Concepts Interwoven, Three Blessings of Hope’
From left, poets Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, Marjorie Evasco, and Merlie M. Alunan read in three languages to the audience at Frankfurt’s opening ceremony. Image: FBM
A trio of beaming poets—Marjorie Evasco, Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, and Merlie M. Alunan—provided meditative, sometimes mesmerizing word imagery from Frankfurt’s Guest of Honor Philippines. They worked in three national languages, “three concepts interwoven, three blessings of hope, three ambassadors of poetry,” as their introduction put it.
“I strew these words to you,” as Evasco said at one point, “in the hope that they would bring heaven lower.”
Despite some rapid turning of pages as scripts on music stands became confusing, “Three graces” seemed the most appropriate descriptor heard during this sequence.
In addition to these ebullient poetics, several very apt comments were made onstage, including those from Mike Josef, Frankfurt’s mayor, and Wolfram Weimer, minister of state for culture and the media, but it was the shuddering beauty of the musical performances that led Frankfurt president and CEO Juergen Boos to say onstage that this was the first time the trade show had had “such an enormous choir and a deejay” as part of its ceremony.
Not only were hundreds of people in the concert hall to take in the show, but Frankfurt also mounted a highly professional transmission from the stage, with artful videography and excellent sound design streaming a real-time evocation of the program of solid quality.
‘We Bear Witness’
Philippine Sen. Loren Legarda speaks at the October 14 opening ceremony. Image: FBM
The Philippine senator, Loren Legarda, became the central speaker, who referenced the Philippines’ background of colonial governance and “the deep wounds of oppression. …
“I stand before you,” Legarda said to the audience, “as a daughter of an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands scattered across the sea like pearls. Geography that some call ‘fragmented,’ we call ‘infinite.'”
Legarda said that she’d first imagined the Philippines as a guest of honor at Frankfurt 10 years ago, understanding the voices of the Philippines’ writers’ voices belonging among the world’s greatest literature.”
Addressing her audience, Legarda evoked the Rizal-based theme of the week’s show, “Imagination People’s the Air,” saying, “We gather here to ask, what kind of imagination will people the air today and in the coming days?
“Here at the world’s largest gathering of stories and ideas, we bear witness to the power of words to build what is just, not for ourselves alone, but for one another, in a time when walls rise higher than bridges; when children’s bodies shrink to the bone from starvation; when entire families are crushed and buried beneath shattered concrete; when hands are cuffed for nothing more than their color.
“We return to the threatening truths for which Rizal gave his life and through which a nation rose that literature must provoke the conscience, break the silence imposed by fear, and ignite courage where misery has been sown by the despotic, the corrupt, and the cruel.”
A recording of the opening ceremony is available on YouTube here:
More from Publishing Perspectives on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here; more on Guest of Honor Philippines is here; more on international book fairs and publishing-industry trade shows is here; more on world book publishing and politics is here; and more on the German book publishing industry and book business is here.
Our Publishing Perspectives 2025 Show Magazine is being released today, October 15 and can be found in all the halls of Frankfurter Buchmesse around the Agora.
If you can’t be with us in Frankfurt this year, be sure to download our PDF of the full magazine here.
Wherever our international readers are in the world, they use our free daily email to be sure they don’t miss any news. Sign up now.