Homage to a musical legend

The Orchestra Hall of Chicago Musical College was filled to capacity during that unusually cold evening of December 12, 1931. In spite of the snowstorm that started earlier that afternoon, people came to hear what promised to be an interesting concert. They were going to hear, along with the music of Mozart, Liszt, Massenet, Lalo, Rossini, and Saint-Saens, the music of “that student composer from the Philippine Islands.”

To the people in that hall, the name Nicanor Abelardo was no longer new.