FEATURE
Hearts open
for tomorrow, today
A
By Fr. Keith Amodia, SDB
re you sure it won’t pick up the sounds from the church services?” we asked as Mr. Niño James Bañares was setting up the condenser microphone. We were in a room in a building adjacent to the church and we could hear the celebration of the Mass through the concrete walls. Mr. Bañares is setting up the recording equipment as we entered the room. We were here to record a new arrangement of a song. He was confident that the isolation pads around the condenser microphone would block out the noise. Mr. Bañares, or Sir Niño, is part of the Salesian Music Ministry (SMM). Just as the pandemic began last year, they have started to acquire recording equipment so they could set up a “mobile studio”–a music studio you could just unpack and set up anywhere. It had been the dream to record songs and produce music videos at the service of Salesian music, and now it is slowly coming true. “Open our Hearts,” a song originally composed by Fr. Fidel Orendain, SDB and Mr. Jude Gitamondoc for the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Don Bosco Labangon was chosen by the SMM as the theme song for facing the pandemic. “We want to reinterpret this song as an invitation for us to keep opening our hearts in the midst of the pandemic and in front of the 500 YOC,” Fr. Randy Figuracion explained to the other Salesians as they took their places in recording their parts. Not only were we fighting a pandemic, we are also pushing for renewal in the quincentennial celebration of Christianity in the Philippines. The song, however, is just part of the series of productions in the pipeline of SMM. The group has been churning out music, new and old, in musical notations, albums, or in concerts. Last November 2019, they began to produce covers of Salesian songs that they have been posting on YouTube. “Open our Hearts” is the fourth in the playlist. Their YouTube Channel does not focus only on music. SMM was established to promote creative works of the Salesians and the Salesian Family. On the channel are also short catechism videos produced for the parishioners of the Archdiocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. The videos feature Fr. Randy as the parish priest explaining Catholic St. John Bosco Today | January-March 2021
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