1999 Philippine Ambassadors of Goodwill

Prof. Elizabeth Susan Vista-Zamar (center) conducting the Campus Choristers in gala ensemble.

Taken from the 1999 Cultural Affairs Committee's Itugyan: A Zoe Rodriguez Lopez' Memorial Concert are these excerpts from Palanca Awardee, Mr. Ian Fermin Rosales Casocot's Reviews.


"They sang beautifully. It was the sound of a chorus of angels. A choral group for faculty kids sharing music for charity, the brainchild of Prof. Priscilla Magdamo-Abraham, under the baton of Prof. Elizabeth Susan Vista-Zamar, made into a NAMCYA award-winning choir, one of the top three choirs in the country today.

To hear and to sing with the Campus Choristers is an experience that may rival dreaming.

With finely controlled softness and crescendo of voices, manages to inject the dose of longing that makes the song hit its mark which is our romantic reveries.

Yet the romantic aside, they do justice as well to straining musical requirements of Ryan Cayabyab's "Tsismis" or "Limang Dipang Tao" or the infuriatingly difficult half-notes of Christine Munco's "Lupang Tinubuan."

From Anton Bruckner's "Christus Factus Est" to the traditional "Kinhason," from Aaron Paul del Rosario's "Minsan Lang Kitang Iibigin" to Ralph Manuel's "Alleluia," The Campus Choristers sound is distinctive--not because they meet (and even refine) the challenges of the notes on the musical scale, or because of the choir's cohesiveness of tone and voice, but because of the emotions they evoke in every song.

Prof. Elizabeth Susan Vista-Zamar conducting the Campus Choristers during an after-dinner number in California, USA


Members of the Campus Choristers posing before Banana Republic in California

For a choir of angels to be called such, they would have to sing much more than the song. They would have to become the song. And more often than not, the Campus Choristers always do."

Moses Joshua Aaron B. Atega Garcia too has written something about the group and the conductor. Directly qouting from his blog, it read:

"ISABEL DIMAYA VISTA, the former director of the Silliman School of Music, gave Silliman two national honors when her choirs won two first places in the National Music Competition for Young Artists. And the most memorable of these glories was in 1973 when, as Champion, the Silliman’s Young Singers performed for the former First Lady in Malacañang and then at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, together with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra.



Isabel’s daughter ELIZABETH SUSAN VISTA-SUAREZ also became director of the School of Music, and also directed choirs that became national winners. Her magical distillation of choral music, through the acclaimed [Silliman University] Campus Choristers, led the way for the choir being chosen as the Philippine Centennial Goodwill Ambassadors to the United States. Like a blast from the past, Susan’s choir also performed with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra during the Silliman Centennial in 2001. Indeed, like mother, like daughter."

Photo courtesy of
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/glanis/gallery2.html
http://s229.photobucket.com/albums/ee67/micolauron/