WHAT DOES IT TO MAKE A CHAMPION LIKE LEA SALONGA AND JOEY AYALA?

Or Julie Lluch, Gino Gonzales, Gener Caringal, or Mario O’Hara—CCP celebrates 55 years by honoring the country’s foremost artists Although Joey Ayala, who was among the recipients of the 2024 Gawad CCP para sa Sining for what he has accomplished in music, might have delivered the most riveting acceptance speech (he was candid, he was clever, and he was funny)—“CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) po ha , not CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines)!”—drawing the most lively reaction from the audience at the 55th anniversary celebration of the CCP at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater on Friday night, Sept. 20, it was the Gawad para sa Sining awardee for the visual arts Julie Lluch who might have so eloquently and profoundly shared the condition of the artist. “May this award spurn me on not toward greater heights, but toward the lower depths,” she said.

“Because it is in the lower depths that the artist may see, smell, taste, and feel the festering wounds of suffering humanity.” Art, after all, is an exploration of the human condition, an interpretation of the agonies and the ecstasies we undergo as human beings, an expression of our best hopes or our worst fears. Lea Salonga, upon whom the Gawad CCP para sa Sining for her achievements in theater, was bestowed, said something along the same lines, although she focused more on the village that it would take for a career like hers as “an artist in this ephemeral art form” to be possible.

“I don�.