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… 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… 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… 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
