The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
While Michelle Junia—also known as Nikki Junia—is an active member of the Board of Trustees of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), she has mustered the principles and practices of an arts technocrat in the primer arts and culture state agency. From interacting and collaborating with other members of the board, Michelle comes to terms with her own ideas and managed to bring them out for the enhancement of the country’s culture and the arts.
Being a board member, policymaking for the progression of Philippine aesthetics has been Nikki’s masterpiece along with her fellow members.
It’s because she isn’t only a think tank as an arts manager but she is also an artist herself so she feels and thinks like one for the betterment of her lot. Aside from operating and managing a music school called Musik Garten Manila, Junia has a Bachelor of Music major in Voice degree from the Conservatory of Music of the University of Santo Tomas.
She’s a singer and a music educator combined to empathize with fellow artists so it’s easy for her to understand and to offer solutions to their plight like unfair labor treatment to artisans, low talent fees, intellectual piracy, discrimination and uneven competition among foreign acts, among other problems.
There were many projects in the CCP that Junia had dipped her fingers into and they were all successful like “Pasinaya,” an annual celebration the agency has been observing for many years in recognition of regional culture and arts. “Pasinaya” albeit its absence since 2020 and obviously this year because of the still raging COVID-19 pandemic has seen the mammoth participation of Filipino artists and spectators, a gauge the consciousness of the people on arts and culture is obviously stirred.
This attitude has inspired Nikki to pursue her passion of thinking more proactive involvement in many programs of CCP to highlight national heritage. When Nikki sat down with the board some years back, her Musik Garten School had the opportunity to participate in the “Pasinaya” event. From there on, she excitedly shares her ten-cent worth of ideas to come up with other projects especially in these challenging times when live performances are restricted. What motivated her to explore other unchartered courses was when she was appointed Chairperson of the Committee on Artistic Matters.
Because of her position, Nikki has been dreaming and consistently discovering new ideas in her turf to promote and to shape up Filipino musicality especially in time of the global market online.
Thus, the evolvement of “Kanto Kultura,” a collaboration of Junia’s committee with the whole CCP setup that salutes the Filipino talents in celebrating arts and culture however online that she also shares with fellow board member Stanley Seludo with the consultation with artist and arts patron Jaime Laya.
One of the major components of “Kanto Kultura” is “Kanto Canta,” an online band competition which was an original idea by Stanley which she brought up to Nikki who approved of it.
“We would like to discover fresh artistic talents that can offer a distinct quality of a Pinoy music,” said Junia about the objective of the contest.
The search will showcase original Filipino musical works, new songs, new music that incorporate traditional musical instruments in order to create a “new Pinoy sound.” It aims to discover a distinct Filipino music that could match the K-pop phenomenon.
The online band search is open to natural-born Filipinos who currently reside in the Philippines, 18 years old and above and with no existing professional and commercial entertainment contracts.
The submission period for the first quarter of “Kanto Canta” is from February 20 to March 20, 2021. From all the entries, pre-qualifiers will be chosen and posted in “Kanto Kultura” official social media pages. The top 15 finalists will be chosen and awarded with the prizes worth Php150,000.00.
For more details, like and follow the project on Facebook, facebook.com/kantokultura or other social media pages, @kantokultura. You may also contact CCP at (02)8832-1125 local 1409/1800 or email (ccpkantokultura@gmail.com).