41 years later: UPCC Batch '85 alumni return to the Italian town that shaped a lifetime of memories
There is a particular kind of memory that doesn't age. It doesn't yellow at the edges like an old photograph or soften into vague sentiment the way most recollections do. It stays sharp, sensory, alive—the exact temperature of the air, the specific quality of light, the feeling in one’s chest when one was young and singing and everything was still ahead.
For the ten alumni of the University of the Philippines Concert Chorus (UPCC) who gathered in Italy mid-June this year, that memory has a very precise address and time: Cascine San Pietro, the summer of 1985.
The 7th international tour
The University of the Philippines Concert Chorus, then under the leadership of its artistic director and conductor, Prof. Rey T. Paguio, was already a veteran of the world stage by then, embarking on its 7th world tour. It was then a 43-strong ensemble of young UP students, more than half of whom were traveling abroad for the first time.
They carried the country's music to concert halls, school auditoriums, and cathedrals across the globe. Pretty soon, even the first timers knew the rhythms of tour life—the jet lag, the long bus rides, the quick friendships formed in green rooms and hotel lobbies, the camaraderie that only forms between people who share a stage night after night.
But nothing quite prepared them for Cascine San Pietro, the nondescript rural town in Cassano D’Adda, Metropolitan Milan, that welcomed the UPCC for the first time in 1985.
Fated friendship
Perlita Paras Depatillo recounts the fateful origins of that first encounter. “According to Gabriele Riva, the original coordinator for UPCC in Cascine, in May of 1985, Mr. Segatti, the coordinator for UPCC in San Vito, suggested that Cascine San Pietro host the UPCC because the group suddenly had no place to go after San Vito. He replied that he wanted to hear the choir himself before making a final decision. In June, he went to Klagenfurt with Mr. Segatti and his good friend Celio [Ostan], and after seeing and hearing the choir, he agreed to host them. At the end of June 1985, the Chorus arrived at Cascine San Pietro.”
Sharon Wright-Mariano remembers that first visit this way, “Residents welcomed us into their homes. We felt accepted like family. It remains one of the most beautiful memories of my life.”
Since then, Cascine has continued hosting UPCC touring groups every tour year without interruption for the next 41 years. In an era when so much is disposable and attention is measured in seconds, 41 years of unbroken hospitality between a Filipino university choir and a small Italian town is worth pausing to consider. It says something about what music can do when it is received, not merely consumed—and about what happens when a community decides that a moment of beauty is worth preserving.
Sixty and counting
Of the original 43 who made that journey in 1985, ten returned in June, representing all 43—including those scattered across the world, and those no longer here to make the trip.
Forming this small alumni group were I, Depatillo, Wright-Mariano, Zebedee Zúñiga, Lindie Ponce Enrile-Achacoso, Rico Santos, Hilario Sean Palmiano, Christina Esguerra, Sharon Wright-Mariano, and Luningning Buan-Manahan. Zoe Arroyo-Nelle also joined the trip but unfortunately was unable to make it in time for the concert on June 20.
For seven of these ten, the homecoming carried an additional, deeply personal weight: They returned together to the town as part of the celebration of their 60th birthdays this year.
There was something quietly profound about that convergence—marking six decades of life in the very place where some of their most luminous young memories were made. Not in a ballroom or a restaurant or any of the conventional venues where milestone birthdays are observed, but in a small Italian town that, against all probability, chose to love them and never stopped.
What the Batch '85 alumni carried
On the evening of June 20, nine voices once again filled the parish church of the town to honor that first encounter 41 years ago. Though not performing as the UPCC in any official sense, they rendered with the group’s signature joie de vivre a total of 14 songs in voices that were older but also richer with a resonance that only life can give. In a sense, they were also singing for the younger versions of themselves who had no idea, 41 years ago, that they were doing something that would matter for the rest of their lives.
One of the honored guests at the concert, Antonio Capece, Commissioner for Culture of the city of Cassano d’Adda, commented, “After so many years, this choir’s return is still moving. Their affection and shared memories show the value of an encounter that deserves to be remembered and rediscovered.”
Oreste Depaulo, head of the association “Mondo Libero dalla Droga Italia” in Cassano d’Adda, described the visit as a meaningful example of cultural exchange and lasting friendship.
For an hour or so, that summer of 1985 in Cascine San Pietro was neither distant nor past—it was relived, reclaimed, and made a tangible part of new core memories for both the Filipino choristers and the Italian community that never really said goodbye.
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