Moritz Buchner of the Forum Transregionale Studien interviewed me about my ideas and experience in the creation of »Echoing Europe – Postcolonial Reverberations«. On 16-18 May, you premiered a sound performance entitled “Echoing Europe – Postcolonial Reverberations” at the Theater Ballhaus Naunynstrasse Berlin. Could you tell us the background of the project? Around the same… Continue reading
Jamal Tuschick reviewed Echoing Europe – Postcolonial Reverberations on der Freitag. “meLê yamomo zeigt in seinem Soundwerk „Echoing Europe – Postcolonial reverberations“ die europäische Aneignungs- und Kategorisierungsarroganz und ihre wissenschaftlichen Maskierungen im Geist der Traurigen Tropen. Er untersucht die Grenze zwischen „Musik“ und „Geräusch“ als gewaltsame Setzung nicht zuletzt. … Er spielt mit Tonspulen und Grammophontrichtern…. Continue reading
In time for our premiere, music critic Christoph Möller produced a feature on “Echoing Europe – Postcolonial Reverberations” on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. “Was Musik ist, entscheidet nach wie vor der Westen, meint der Musikwissenschaftler und Performer meLê yamomo. In seiner Sound-Performance „Echoing Europe“ will er koloniale Denkmuster in der Musik offenlegen und kritisch hinterfragen.” You can… Continue reading
On 16 May, I will be premiering a new music theatre/sound performance piece entitled »Echoing Europe – Postcolonial Reverberations«. You can read the dramaturgical notes on the Theater Ballhaus Naunynstrasse website. Tickets are now available on the Berlin Bühnen website. (Up there is a picture at the rehearsal studio.) If you are in Berlin, it… Continue reading
Sarong Banggi is an ongoing conversation between meLê yamomo (performance and sound artist-scholar) and Pepe Dayaw (food and performance artist) who talk, sing, dance, and cook about macro- and micro-histories of Filipino diasporas and musical movements. The journey starts in 1571, with the establishment of the city of Manila as the beginning of globalization. Their stories… Continue reading
SPIN organizes the international conference, Rethinking the Dynamics of Music and Nationalism. The conference is set on 26-29 September 2017 at De Rode Hoed, Cultureel Centrum (Amsterdam). The full program can be found here. I’ll be presenting my research on the Philippine Military Band within my proposed framework of The Anthropology of Sound. Here’s the abstract: The volatile sonus… Continue reading
Gong Semar Pegulingan Rehearsals from habi on Vimeo. This semester, gamelan master I Made Agus Wardana teaches Gong Semar Pegulingan (Balinese Gamelan) at the Musicology Department at the University of Amsterdam. It is meditative to be repeating the complex interlocking rhythms over and over until it becomes second nature to the mind and… Continue reading
This advertisement shows that Lohengrin would have been the first Wagner opera performed in Manila in August 1895—almost half a century after the opera’s inaugural performance in Weimar. The Manila premiere production was staged by the visiting Compañia de Opera Italiana under the musical direction of Italian composer/conductor Maestro Ciro Cavalieri, together with the local Orquesta Molina under the baton of Filipino composer/conductor Maestro José Estrella.
Lohengrin in Manila
Image: ©National Archive of the Philippines