Kundirana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kundirana of La Salle Green Hills, in the Philippines, is a famous high-school singing group. The word Kundirana is a combination of the Filipino words kundiman and harana, both forms of love songs in Filipino.
The group became popular simply because some of the country’s massively idolized singers were once members of the group. Gary Valenciano, Ogie Alcasid, Randy Santiago, Rannie Raymundo, Dingdong Avanzado, Juan Miguel Salvador, Carlo Orosa, Vince Alaras, and Gian Magdangal of Philippine Idol fame were with the Kundirana in their high-school days.
These great talents never fail to point out that they learned the rudiments of singing and performing as members of that all-boys glee club, which yearly has a membership of only 12 to 18—making the group prestigious, if not elite, since La Salle Green Hills high-school department has a population of only several hundreds.
Musical directors-composers Louie Ocampo, Mel Villena, Archie Castillo and Dingdong Eduque were once Kundirana boys, too. And so is the dean of University of the Philippines School of Music, Ramon Montet Acoymo.
A well-known tenor on the country’s classical music scene, Acoymo has also been the group’s artistic director-vocal coach for the past 30 years. He was in the very first Kundirana batch. “Kundirana is first and foremost a ministry. It was never meant to compete with the secular pop groups of the country,” intones Acoymo. He adds: “As a ministry, the Kundirana is meant to edify, entertain and inspire the needy, the sick, the helpless, the wayward, the desperate and the destitute, the lonely and abandoned aged ones and even the dying. “We tour the country and the world not to sing in the most prestigious concert venues but primarily to perform in orphanages, hospitals, home for the aged and similar institutions.”
Among their missionary works, Kundirana can claim to have largely built Bahay Pag-asa, a halfway house in Bacolod, Negros Occidental for young offenders, who in the past were being jailed with adult criminals who would abuse and corrupt them. Kundirana has also built a lot of classrooms in many parts of the country.
