Remembering Sister Vincent

By: MRS. CARMENCITA ARAMBULO

BM PIANO 1958
My father chose for me to study at Saint Paul Conservatory of Music
in Manila instead of UP Conservatory of Music in Diliman, inspite of
the fact that both he and my mom were both medical graduates of UP
College of Medicine (classes '35 and '36). It was a big disappointment to
my childhood piano teacher, Maestra Rosario Lopez Garcia, that I did not enroll at UP where she
was the premier piano teacher. . My father's reason being - "naku, delicado diyan sa UP, talahiban
pa roon at bata ka pa (1954). Mabuti pa diyan ka na sa St. Paul Manila sa mga madre. Laki ka na
rin lang sa kanila sa St. Paul QC."
So, he enrolled me at St. Paul Conservatory in Herran, Malate, Manila in 1954. At that time, Sister
Vincent had just newly arrived from Paris, having studied under Alfred Cortot at the Ecole
Normale de Musique. She was already a nun. (Sister Vincent before becoming a nun, had studied
piano performance at the UP Conservatory under Julio Esteban Anguita.) So, Sister was installed
as the new Dean of Saint Paul Conservatory.
I spent four fruitful years studying piano with Sister Vincent. She was the dynamic and demanding
kind of teacher. Very strict, very particular about tone and technique, ways of practising,
meticulous and detailed, very musical and a perfectionist! Of course, she was using Cortot's
Principles of Piano Technique. She produced very, very good results in us. I remember being the
second to the youngest of her piano pupils. Among her students, whose names I remember, were
Baby Millar Sobell, Elenita Bolipata, Henrietta Tinio, Remy Baltao, Conching Villacorte, Dedes
Agravante, Mercedes Lofradez, Lovina Alvarez, Carmencita Castro and myself. The conservatory
then, may have been small in population, but very select. We were like family. Of course, we had
a great faculty like Stella Goldenberg Brimo, Nena del Rosario Villanueva, Maria Mota, Rosie
Banaag Larracas, for piano; Antonio J. Molina, Lucio San Pedro for theory and composition;,
Montserrat Espina and, Corazon Canave Dioquino for history and music literature.. Each of the
piano faculty had their own group of students. We all did our graduation recitals with the MSO
under the batons of Oscar Yatco, Bernardino Custodio and Antonino Buenaventura. And the
orchestra members (those who are still with us now) recall how good we, Paulinians, all were!"
Basta taga Saint Paul's ang soloist, siguradong magaling!"
Sister Vincent was way ahead of her time, assigning us besides the standard repertoire,
contemporary repertoire like Britten's First Piano Concerto (I premiered it in 1958), Villalobos,
Ginastera, Prokofieff and Shostakovich. She made us listen to LP recordings of great pianists in
the library. At that time, listening was a no-no in traditional methods. But she made us listen to
Rosalyn Tureck, Walter Gieseking, Witold Malcuzinski, Vladimir Horowitz, Robert Casadesus,
Myra Hess, Dinu Lipatti, Alicia dela Rocha and many more. She made us listen to the beautiful
tones and colors in their performance and imagine what they did with their fingers, and arms. There
were no DVDs then. If we did not have printed scores (no photocopiers yet), we copied our scores
from the library copy, by hand!

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Sister Vincent had a most invaluable training in Gregorian Chant from the Benedictines of
Solesmes and the Ward Method. All of us at the Conservatory went through years of studying and
singing Gregorian Chant, which made us more musical in our singing and performance. We
sounded like the singing nuns in the Novitiate! The Ward Method, based on the Gregorian Chant,
was a very effective classroom music method used in Paulinian schools. All of us became trainees
in Ward and taught it in the grade school classroom. It came way before Kodaly method entered
the music education scene in the country. Sister Vincent painstakingly shared all that to us!
Before our graduation recital, sometimes for six months to one year, she made us become
"internas"(stay at the dormitory) for closer monitoring of our practice. No visits from boy friends
allowed. Ask Cesar Arambulo. She watched us when we were sleeping at the dorm- naiipit ba
namin ang aming mga kamay sa pagtulog? She would surprise us in our practice rooms to see if
we were practicing correctly. One time, she caught me reading an Emily Loring pocketbook,
instead of practising. Naku, malaking sermon ang inabot ko! She taught us time management- with
our academic subjects, music subjects, our practice hours and our extra curricular activities. We
became very organized. She even prescribed our diet. She inspected our gowns for the recital.
Bawal ang strapless or straps sa gown. Bawal ang low neckline. Bawal ang "off the shoulders".
We had to practice with our gowns and shoes for the recital two or three days before the date. On
the day itself, she had a step by step ritual for us to follow. Very much like a boxing coach! Grabe
talaga.
Sister Vincent was also a choral conductor par excellence.
She put together the St. Paul Glee Club which, at that time,
was the top chorus in the land. There were no UP Madrigal
Singers, UP Concert Chorus, Ateneo Chamber Singers, or
Singing Ambassadors to speak of.. SPCM Glee Club was at
the peak with Sister Vincent as its dynamic conductor. We
all enjoyed our concerts (sometimes with the guys in
Ateneo)!
Those
were really happy
and
memorable
days! Golden Years! We were
also involved in Broadway shows directed by
Father Reuter at Fleur de Lis Theater. (My best friend,
Dedes Agravante Isleta and Sister Anunciata Sta. Ana, the
present Dean of SPUM CMPA became the excellent choral
conductors they have become, because of Sister Vincent!
Mga tagapagmana niya.)
I graduated B.Mus. in Piano Performance in 1958 (magna cum laude), the first
to inaugurate the Steinway grand piano at the Fleur de Lis Theater. Sister was
very proud of me! After my successful graduation (I played two concertos with
orchestra- Beethoven's Fourth and Britten's First) she said I had given her back
100 percent of what she had taught me." Bayad ka na. Wala kang utang sa akin,
Chita!" I said, "Marami pa rin po. Marami pong salamat sa lahat." But my heart
was bursting with joy that I finally pleased her! Oh, she was hard to please.
And when she said that, I felt like flying to the skies! In some ways, she was

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also funny. She obliged with photo ops with us, whenever she was happy with our performance.
But if not, she would make a disappearing act - back to the convento.
Sister Vincent gave me my first job- to teach piano and theory at the Conservatory and to be her
assistant in the Glee Club. I also became the accompanist of the Ateneo Glee Club of Father James
B. Reuter. Then for the next two years before I left for New England Conservatory, she mentored
me. She assigned me subjects to teach such as Principles in Music Education, Methods of
Teaching, Rudiments of Music, Harmony, Forms and Analysis, Counterpoint and Orchestration. I
was very good in these subjects as an undergrad. I became even better teaching them! All because
she believed I could do it. She was very encouraging. She always put a challenge before me. "Kaya
mo yan" became her mantra. She even recommended me to the Liberal Arts department to team
teach Humanities with an American professor, Robert Lane. I had so much in my plate, but because
of her faith in me, I managed to do everything well . Her motto was Aristotle's:" Excellence is not
an act. It is a habit!" (Now , my dear students, you know where that was coming from!)
In 1959, I got a full scholarship for graduate studies at the New England Conservatory. Upon
audition, the panel was unanimous in giving me the scholarship. That was because of my excellent
preparation and piano background under Sister Vincent. I easily became a graduate assistant in
Theory under Dr. Carl McKinley. Again, because of my teaching experience in theory at St. Paul's.
I studied Choral conducting with Lorna Cooke de Varon upon Sister Vincent's advice. And became
a member of the famous NEC Chorus. We sang and did recordings with the Boston Symphony
and Charles Munch. In 1961, I finished my Master's degree at NEC in Piano Performance with a
minor in Pedagogy of Music Theory, I taught piano at the NEC Prep Department and in Walnut
Hill School upon recommendation of my piano pedagogy teacher, Jeane Poole Alderman, who by
the way, discovered that I loved and was good in teaching piano to little children. But that, again,
is another story.
I went home in 1963. I was hi-jacked by UP College of Music to teach Integrated Music Theory
for the first time in UP. (I remained at the UP for 31 years!) I taught piano privately at home, later
on put up my own studio in 1968 (GMS) and taught piano part time in St. Paul's Manila to
undergrads. Sister was still the Dean. I got married to Cesar Arambulo in 1963. And produced five
children in seven years!.
Fast Forward- Sister Vincent left the Philippines for the USA prior to the 1986 EDSA Revolution.
May pagka activista kasi siya. She established two piano studios (one in Cerritos and another one
in Carson, California ) and the Filipinas Chorale USA. She was very active in the St. Philomene's
parish music ministry. I kept in touch with her all these times. Visited her with Cesar. And
introduced family friends to her. Her student Michael Villareal and my student, Kit del Rosario
met each other when Sister and I thought of having our students play a piano duo. Later on, Michael
and Kit fell in love and got married.
In one of our visits to Cerritos, Sister Vincent told me, "You know what, there's this method called
Suzuki Method, which teaches little children the things I was teaching you in college! Check it
out. It's amazing. It will be good for you to know it and apply in your studio." I was surprised that
she, at this point of her life, would still find something better than what she already knew!" Hmmm.
And so we checked it out- my hubby Cesar and I did. Sister Vincent recommended me to her
trainer, Doris Kopellman in San Diego, where Cesar and I observed her teaching many Suzuki
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students, ages 3 to 16, during the day and introducing to us Suzuki Philosophy at night. That went
for two weeks. We booked ourselves in a little inn near her house. That was my first encounter
with the Suzuki method. Then Sister went on to inform me that there was going to be a Suzuki
Teachers Conference in Amherst , Massachusetts and if I could possibly attend it and meet Dr.
Suzuki himself. Again, I did as she told me. And met Dr. Shinichi Suzuki himself! I fell in love
with Dr. Suzuki and his philosophy. After the Conference, I enrolled for Suzuki Piano training at
the American Suzuki Institute at the University of Wisconsin where I trained with Madame Haruko
Kataoka, the co-founder of the Suzuki Piano Method.
The rest is history. I AM WHAT I AM NOW. BECAUSE OF SISTER VINCENT,
I still continued visiting Sister, but no longer very often, as I got heavily involved in the Suzuki
movement here and in Asia. I wrote her letters from time to time and she would answer me. I
would bring her the graduation DVDs of my students, tell her about my students winning
competitions and getting full scholarships in the States and Europe. I told her about my teacher
training stints all over. She loved hearing my stories. And you should hear her WOWS! It made
me very happy that she was happy about what I was doing and about her APOS sa musika. You
know who you are.....
Sister Vincent wanted to be a contemplative nun, that's why she left the SPC Order
(an active religious order) and became a lay sister. I found her very holy and prayerful. In one of
my visits and sleepovers at her house in Cerritos, I experienced hearing Mass twice a day- in the
morning, followed by Rosary and Benediction , praying her breviary - and at noon, Mass again
followed by Rosary and Benediction, . She would only teach a little piano early in the afternoon.
After dinner, she went for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament until 9 pm. Sometimes she
rehearsed the choir. So every time I visited her, I would prepare myself to go to Mass twice a day
and visit the Blessed Sacrament. Sister continued being a nun, even out of the order.
I just turned 77 in January this year. Sister Vincent is 15 years older than me. In her 80's she still
continued conducting her choir, but stopped teaching piano. Sobrang nakaka stress daw! I planned
to visit her when I heard that one of her legs got amputated and that she bravely got herself an
artificial leg. I never got to visit her! I was just too busy working.
Forgive me, dear Sister, for not finding the time to visit you, to comfort you, to hug you, to kiss
you, to thank you and to express how very much you are loved by this, your student Chita. Thank
you for the music. Thank you for all you have taught me. Thank you for the doors of opportunity
you opened up for me. Thank you for introducing me to the Suzuki Method. Most of all, thank you
for your love and for being a great inspiration in my life. But I know that you are happy now - with
whom you always wanted to be - with JESUS. Rest in peace, my beloved Sister Vincent. Please
pray for me. I LOVE YOU FOREVER.

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