The Ateneo de Manila College Glee Club - Jesuitenmission

Prof. Maria Lourdes Venida-Hermo
Choirmaster
Maria Lourdes Venida-Hermo is a professor of music at the St. Scholastica’s College, Manila (SSC). She
handles Choral Conducting, Music Theory, and Chorus classes, both in the undergraduate and graduate
programs therein. Formerly, she was a faculty member of the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music for
almost fifteen years.
Professor Hermo completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Choral Conducting at the University
of the Philippines in 1983 and 1998, respectively. She will forever be grateful to Professors A.O.
Veneracion and the late R. T. Paguio, Dr. F.F. Feliciano, and Mr. M. Behrman for their unselfish
mentoring.
In between her academic calendar and conducting responsibilities, Professor Hermo is often called upon
to adjudicate regularly in choir competitions of the National Music Competitions for Young Artists
(NAMCYA) and conduct choral clinics in its outreach programs, including workshops for the Kodaly
Society of the Philippines and the Philippine Society of Music Educators. Currently, she sits as the Vice-
President of the newly established Philippine Choral Directors Association (PCDA).
Often referred to as the “first woman choirmaster” of the Ateneo College Glee Club (ACGC), Professor
Hermo has worked with the undergraduate choir since 2002. Her direction of the group, where she is
known more comfortably as “Ma’am Malou,” has produced its own share of happy successes in the
choir’s long history. Most memorable among these are the much-applauded U.S. concert tour of 2004 and
the European competition and concert tour of 2006, where the ACGC garnered major awards in
Miltenberg, Germany and Arezzo, Italy.