Lilac Caña: Reflections on 50 Golden Years

Lilac Caña: Reflections on 50 Golden Years

Lilac Caña blowing the candles of her cake.
(Photos: M. Ramos)

Interview with Soprano Lilac Caña:

By Michelle Chermaine Ramos
The Philippine Reporter

Local vocal powerhouse Lilac Caña recently celebrated her 50th birthday in an intimate gathering with 50 of her closest friends, family and long-time supporters on September 21, 2019 in Mississauga. The private soiree was a celebration for fifty blessed years as well as a thank you to her lifelong benefactors who supported her at various stages of her life and career. Some of her notable career highlights include singing for not just one, but three different popes and being invited to perform at the canonization ceremonies of St. Pedro Calungsod and St. Mother Teresa at the Vatican. She was also invited to Malacañang Palace by President Benigno Aquino III in 2010 where she received the Pamana Ng Pilipino Presidential Award for her charitable work. However, the long road was not that easy.

This is my second interview with the songbird with the golden voice as this time, we are digging deeper as she opens up about her experience as a struggling artist and reflects on her life, challenges and lessons she learned along the way.

Early Years

Caña’s family left the Philippines for Canada when she was eight years old after martial law impacted her parents’ business back home. Being musically inclined at a young age, she began taking piano lessons in Grade 1 in the Philippines and continued here as she sang at social functions in the community. She later auditioned and attended the Claude Watson School for the Arts in North York, where she majored in Music and minored in Visual Arts.

With the encouragement of her teacher, Sarah Langford, after high school, Caña won a scholarship with the American Institute for Musical Studies for an intensive summer program in Graz, Austria where she studied classical music. Although she tried different genres and was in a rock band at some point, she developed a taste for opera. “What I love about it is the purity of the voice, the emotion and the artistry. This is the naked human voice that with power and great virtuosity is projecting human emotions across to the audience in a big auditorium. These are like warrior voices. It’s this beautiful human voice that cuts across the orchestra emoting the basic human experience: love, joy, anger, grief, ecstasy. I love it because it transports you. In the beginning I didn’t really understand the language, but the emotion just hit me to the core,” she explains.

Philippine Artists Group presents Lilac with a portrait.

Aside from Filipino dialects, Caña sings in Italian, German, Russian, Czech, French and Spanish. She also studied basic Italian, French and German in opera school as part of her rigid years of training with the same dedication of a professional athlete honing his or her craft.

University Years

At York University, she initially majored in Music before switching to English to study Canadian and British literature in her second year. Sarah Langford kept coaching her until she completed her training when Langford later introduced her to her next mentor, Eleanor Calbes, who sang with the Canadian Opera Company and founded the Mississauga Opera Company. Caña credits her Tita Eleanor for being a strict coach, giving her lots of musical theatre and opera experience through solo roles with The Calbes Voice Studio and the Mississauga Opera Company. It was also her Tita Eleanor who encouraged her to focus on music and pursue an Operatic Performance graduate degree at the University of Toronto, which she auditioned for and completed the three-year program in only two years with her professors’ support. After her second year, they encouraged her to audition for the Canadian Opera Company where she sang for four years and was the only Filipina in the company at the time.

New York

In November of 2001, a family friend sponsored her trip to New York to study privately with Evelyn Mandac, a Filipina diva who had a career with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York and worked in Germany and Italy and recorded an album with Placido Domingo. The generous stipend was enough to pay her rent for six months where she moved in with her artist friends to focus on her music, taking lessons, entering competitions and going to auditions where she landed small parts in Broadway shows. However, her money started to run out and she reached a crossroads where she had to determine whether it was financially feasible to stay or return to Toronto since it was difficult even for Canadians to find work as this was shortly after 9/11.

Popoy Caña, Dr. Solon Guzman, Rosemer Enverga, Marita Lee, Livvy Camacho, Federico Ramos.

On The Biggest Challenges She Faced

“One would be keeping the faith because art in general is a very difficult path. Artists are really tasked with being a mirror to the human soul, so whatever media you work in as an artist, if you take on that challenge to be the most honest and you take your craft to the highest level, it really demands a lot of sacrifice. Especially after New York, I thought of my friends getting married, having children, buying houses and cars and they had money in the bank. What did I have? I got my dream and not much money in the bank or clothes and not even a house of my own.”

Becoming an Artist and a Businesswoman

She returned to Toronto in 2002 debating whether she should get part time jobs and keep auditioning or join the family business in life insurance and investments. In 2004, she earned her license as a financial advisor for her plan B because many artists she knew had day jobs. “I gained a second career. To be honest, I wasn’t excited about it in the beginning,” she says after all her focus had been on music and she had to stop it for a while.

The second chapter of her life began when she became both an artist and a financial advisor when she took over her father’s agency, Experior Financial Group, a career that afforded her the financial freedom to pursue her music. “I do this for a living and love helping people and I really do see the value in it especially after having been a starving artist,” she explains. “We weren’t literally starving, but a lot of artists don’t see beyond the next gig. During those days, I was renting, going back and forth between living with my parents when I got back from New York. I value independence and I really wanted to be able to stand on my own feet.”

Lilac’s musical band of close friends.

Unlike in the past when she was torn between being an artist or a businessperson, now she proudly identifies as both. “There is something to be said about entrepreneurial spirit,” Caña explains. “When you’re a businessperson, you take your time and your resources quite seriously. I’m not saying it’s about being selfish or self-important. I’m just saying it’s so good to have this knowledge about how money works. There’s knowledge that’s artistic and as artists we’re always striving for the impossible. But because we live in a material world, we have to find ways to make these things possible.”

And make things possible she did. As her career developed over the years, she also constantly served the community lending her golden voice to various charitable causes as she made it a point to use her talents to help others.

Select Career Highlights

Created her own solo role for the world premiere of The Iron Road at the Winter Garden on Yonge street. The performance was about the first wave of Chinese immigrants in Canada who created the Canadian railway in the 1800s and was a fusion European style opera along with elements of Chinese Peking Opera with some parts in Mandarin played with traditional Chinese instruments.

Sang for three different popes. She performed as a soloist for Pope John Paul II for World Youth Day 2002 in Downsview Park in front of a crowd of over 800,000 which was broadcasted live to 1.5 billion people worldwide. In 2012, she sang for St. Pedro Calungsod’s canonization ceremony by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and at St. Mother Theresa’s canonization by Pope Francis in 2016.

Nonie Perez and Orly Inocentes

Sang at Malacañang Palace in 2010 where she was a recipient of the Pamana Ng Pilipino Presidential Award by Benigno Aquino III for her contributions as a musician in raising funds for charitable organizations in the Philippines.
Performed for the Austrian government at events in Toronto and Montreal as well as the Polish community where she is the Musical Director of St. John’s Polish Catholic Church.

Travelled to Italy eight times and sang as a soloist with the Culture Philippines Ontario Folk Dance Troupe for 10 shows all over Italy singing classical Filipino songs.

Her Definition of Success

“At this point in my life, being able to experience the fullness of life with the blessings of career fulfillment as well as joy and love that you experience in your relationships whether it’s with your family, your personal relationships, your colleagues at work. That you take the opportunity to use whatever was given to you and develop it to the best of your abilities and take risks. Try and go do things. You’ll never know until you try. The opposite of success is not even trying because then you’ve already failed,” she explained. Her faith in God is the cornerstone of her life and with that, she strives to use her gift to give thanks and give back to others for her blessings. “Success is arriving at that stage where you can truly say that you have really truly taken the blessing of your life and have given it back to our Creator in the best possible way. And ultimately, when you look back on your life, you can say you have left a legacy of whatever it is that’s important to you. In everything you do, leave the world a better place than it was before.”

Eighty plus guests enjoying Lilac’s golden dinner prepared by Polish chef friend.

What has been her driving force or inspiration through the years?

“Truth, beauty and music. First, acknowledge the truth of who you are as a unique individual created by our Creator and with that, express the beauty within in a way that the world can see it and share it. In my life, music has been the major vehicle for sharing my truth and beauty to the world.”
What’s next?

“I am building my business and at this stage in my life concentrating on that and helping others to empower themselves. If anyone is looking for a way to learn more about financial freedom, I can definitely help them. As well, I would like to say that I don’t want to give myself a deadline, but I would like to spend time working on new music and writing new songs.
Her advice for aspiring artists

“The reality is you have to be doing it for the right reason if it’s going to be a lifelong passion for music or visuals arts, dance, theatre, filmmaking or whatever it is, that you are able to sustain that love through the ups and downs. I would really caution people to not crash and burn and also become the opposite by giving up. Continue to have that desire to strive for excellence but have some grounding roots or elements. And it would be helpful if you could sustain yourself either through your art or some other means. And thirdly, always operate from the highest level of good for yourself and for others. You have to have integrity.”

Lilac with guests

Oswald Magno sings a duet with Lilac while Mila Magno is on the piano.