Under
this motto, from May 16 to 26, 2003, in a concert tour organized and funded
by Friendship Asia, the Rondalla On Wheels performed their music to delighted
audiences at 13 different places—high schools, universities, churches,
welfare centers—all over the Kanto region of Japan.
Who are the
Rondalla On Wheels? Rondalla On Wheels is a band of instrumental music
composed of ten young men and women who at one time or another lived in
Bahay Mapagmahal (“Loving Home” in English), a home for the handicapped
in Quezon City, Philippines. All of them are on wheelchairs, hence the
name.
For the celebration
of the 25th anniversary of its formation, the Rondalla On Wheels was invited
to perform in Japan by Friendship Asia, a volunteer support group formed
in Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, many of whose members have visited
Bahay Mapagmahal through a yearly study tour conducted by Professor Tsuyoshi
Amemiya.
I accompanied
the Rondalla On Wheels throughout the two weeks that they performed and
toured Japan and took pictures of them whenever I got the chance, despite
the tight schedule we had. This is the Rondalla On Wheels in pictures—for
people who didn’t have the chance to see them in concert—or even for those
who did, but didn’t get to see them up close.
