kulintronica

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Kulintang music has crossed the Pacific Ocean finding a new audience in North America. See current female and male traditionalists and innovators at Gongster's Paradise May 27th 2017 #kulintangfest

Kulintang: One of my favorite Filipinx Instruments!

“Kulintang is a modern term for an ancient instrumental form of music composed on a row of small, horizontally laid gongs that function melodically, accompanied by larger, suspended gongs and drums. As part of the larger gong-chime culture of Southeast Asia, kulintang music ensembles have been playing for many centuries in regions of the Eastern Malay Archipelago—the Southern Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Eastern Malaysia, Brunei and Timor,[6] although this article has a focus on the Philippine Kulintang traditions of the Maranao and Maguindanao peoples in particular. Kulintang evolved from a simple native signaling tradition, and developed into its present form with the incorporation of knobbed gongs from Sunda.[5]Its importance stems from its association with the indigenous cultures that inhabited these islands prior to the influences of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity or the West, making Kulintang the most developed tradition of Southeast Asian archaic gong-chime ensembles.”

“The kulintang is traditionally considered a women’s instrument by many groups: the Maguindanao, Maranao, Tausūg/Suluk, Samal, Badjao/Sama, Iranun, Kadazan, Murut, Bidayuh and Iban.[26] Traditionally, the playing of the kulintang was associated with graceful, slow, frail and relaxed movements that showed elegance and decorum common among females.[27] Nowadays, the traditional view of kulintang as strictly for women has waned as both women and men play all five instruments, with some of the more renowned kulintang players being men.[28]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulintang#Feminine_instrument

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academic article:

Mary Talusan, “Muslim Filipino Traditions in Filipino American Popular Culture,” chapter in Muslims and American Popular Culture, Anne Rypstat Richards and Iraj Omidvar, eds. New York: Praeger, 2014.

[NOTE: The link goes to a Google books page that features the entire article. However, Google books links are wonky and don’t always work for everyone. (It works fine on my browser though.)]

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Well that was some kind of magical. #thecotabatosessions #laapff #susieibarra #dannykalanduyan #kulintang #drums (at Art Theatre Long Beach May 10, 2014)  At the screening of The Cotabato Sessions during the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2014.

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In the Philippines, Hearing Music as a Key Step on Path Toward Peace

Composer, percussionist, and musicologist Susie Ibarra is driven by a belief that the values in traditional music and indigenous culture can bring people together. In-person appearance at Asia Society New York tonight, July 30.

Read the full story here.

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In memory of the life and legacy of Danny Kalanduyan.

We would like to share our film online for the first time.

Please share and consider donating to help pay for his funeral expenses here: https://www.gofundme.com/dannykalanduyan

We will never forget you, Danny and we will forever be grateful for sharing your passion, your art, your home, and your love with us. Your voice is the first thing we hear on this film and its your message of how music is shared and handed down generation after generation linking us to our past and our roots that will forever linger in our hearts. We will never forget and we will continue to keep the music always in the present.

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RIP Master K

September 29, 2016

It is with great sadness that the National Endowment for the Arts acknowledges the passing of 1995 NEA National Heritage Fellow Danongan Kalanduyan from San Francisco, California.

Danongan Sibay Kalanduyan was born May 1, 1947, in the fishing village of Datu Piang in the southern Philippines. He was raised in a strongly traditional musical environment, rooted in the culture of Maguindanao tribal traditions. “If you were born in my village you’d hear no Western music, just traditional music,” he said. “The music was everywhere and for everyone — not just for entertainment, but also as an accompaniment to rituals and ceremonies. I didn’t need a tutor; it just automatically came into my head, day and night. I learned it through exposure, through listening.”

Kalanduyan began playing Maguindanao music as a child, focusing on the traditions of kulintang (literally meaning “golden sound moving” in English). At age seven, he started to study other instruments under his grandmother, father, uncles, and cousins— the dabakan, a goblet-shaped drum; the small babandir, a “timekeeper” gong; and the gangingan, a four-gong set. As a young man, he won island-wide competitions on the gangingan and was recognized as a master musician. In 1971, he toured the Far East with the Darangan Cultural Troupe. In 1976, a Rockefeller grant brought Kalanduyan to the University of Washington in Seattle as an artist-in-residence in the ethnomusicology program headed by Dr. Robert Garfias. After completing an eight-year residency, he undertook formal study at the university. In 1984 he was awarded a master’s degree in ethnomusicology. Later that year he moved to California, where he became the musical director of the Kalilang Kulintang Arts of San Francisco.

Kalanduyan was committed to the perpetuation of his cultural traditions. He said, “I feel that transmitting the knowledge I possess is important for Filipino-Americans everywhere, not only to preserve what may be the only authentic Filipino musical form, but also to encourage Filipino-Americans to maintain their cultural heritage.”

Visit the National Endowment for the Arts’ website to read more about Danongan Kalanduyan. A portrait of him by Tom Pich is available for media use. Contact 202-682-5744 to request permission. In addition, Alliance for California Traditional Arts’ YouTube page includes a video of Kalanduyan performing with the Palabuniyan Kulintang Ensemble at a Sounds of California concert.

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Thanks for posting!

@kulintronica on the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8s…gong electronica! #filcomsundays #kundiman #kulintronica

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Thanks for listening to my music!

116th NYC Philippines Independence Day Parade 2014

Here are some photos I took today during the parade! Sadly I didn’t take any pictures of the Ati-Atihan and Dinagyang festival groups and performances as I had to leave the parade a bit early to take photos of my brothers group who were performing on stage. But I did manage to get some pictures and videos of the Masskara festival group! 

Everyone was beautiful and handsome wearing traditional clothes and performing dances and music along the parade. As you can see I also managed to take several pictures of the Ice Prince of the Tropics, Olympiad Michael Christian Martinez, who represented the Philippines in the recent Winter Olympics in figure skating. Actually in this particularly photo of him is when he was passing by and I called out his name and he waved right at me. I actually managed to get his autograph and a picture with him later on backstage as well as talk a little before he had to go. He was just so sweet and humble. :D

I also managed to get some shots and a video of Kulintronica who I was excited to see perform. I have recently started to listen to his music which is a blend of electronica and the use of the Pilipin@ traditional instrument, the kulintang. If you haven’t heard his music go check it out.

I’m currently editing the videos I took during the parade and once I’m done I’ll be posting them on here. So for those who didn’t attend the parade but want to see how it was and can see some of the performances and groups. There are plenty more pictures but I’ll upload them onto the Pinoy-Culture FB page within the next week.

And for any of you who did attend the parade did you guys have fun today? :)

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Clemencia Lopez, Independista

She was 26 when she met the U.S. President, which would be an accomplishment even today. But in 1902, when Clemencia Lopez became the first Filipina ever to set foot in the White House, she made history. She went to meet President Theodore Roosevelt to plead with him to let her brothers come home from banishment on an island in the Philippines at a time when the United States forcibly instituted a policy of “benevolent assimilation” towards a people they regarded as savages, or if they were feeling kindly, as their “little brown brothers.” 

Clemencia Lopez was from the landed gentry of Batangas province whose wealth derived from sugar, rice and shipping. Her family had supported the Philippine Revolution against Spain. Her brother Sixto Lopez was a close friend of Jose Rizal’s and was entrusted to surreptitiously distribute the earliest copies of the national hero’s second novel, El Filibusterismo, during the waning days of Spanish rule.  

When the United States bought the Philippines from Spain in the Treaty of Paris in 1898, thwarting the Philippine Revolution, Sixto Lopez continued to campaign for Philippine independence and refused to pledge allegiance to the Americans. The American military government in the Philippines waged a brutal scorched earth policy to force the Filipinos to surrender. 

SCORCHED EARTH 

In Batangas, where troops under Gen. J. Franklin Bell perpetuated untold atrocities, the Lopez family’s properties were confiscated, their workers subjected to water torture and the Lopezes were dislodged from their home by U.S. military officials.  Clemencia, whose plan to pursue studies in Paris was impeded by the reversal of the family’s fortunes, went to Hong Kong in 1901 to try and persuade her older brother, Sixto, to soften his stance against the Americans. The family and their workers in Batangas needed to gain some relief from the harsh treatment meted out by American authorities.  On December 15, 1901 their younger brothers Cipriano, Lorenzo and Manuel were arrested and imprisoned on trumped up charges and banished to TalimIsland.  Clemencia decided to set sail for America to plead for her exiled brothers and her country.

AMONG ANTI-IMPERIALISTS 

In 1902 she landed in Boston and met with Fiske Warren, who was active in the Anti-Imperialist movement along with Mark Twain and other outspoken critics of American colonial policies in the Philippines, Guam, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Fiske Warren was a friend of Sixto’s and belonged to a prominent Boston family. Their sponsorship of Clemencia opened doors in Boston society, and she completely charmed them as can be gleaned from a Boston newspaper account headlined, “Pretty Filipino Woman’s Plea for her People’s Freedom.”   

Clemencia enrolled in WellesleyCollege to learn English and later remembered spending some of her happiest times there. In March 1902 she testified in WashingtonD.C. before the U.S. Senate Investigating Committee of the Philippines and had the historic meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt. She spoke before the New England Women’s Suffragette Association on May 29, 1902 and said: 

“I believe that we are both striving for much the same object–you for the right to take part in national life; we for the right to have a national life to take part in. Mentally, socially, and in almost all the relations of life, our women are regarded as the equals of our men. This equality of women in the Philippines is not a new thing. It was not introduced from Europe. In the name of the Philippine women, I pray the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association do what it can to remedy all this misery and misfortune in my unhappy country. You can do much to bring about the cessation of these horrors and cruelties, which are today taking place in the Philippines, and to insist upon a more human course. You ought to understand that we are only contending for the liberty of our country, just as you once fought for the same liberty for yours.”  

VIRTUALLY UNKNOWN 

Clemencia returned to the Philippines in 1904, and in 1905 she became one of the founding members of the Philippine Feminist Association, which was dedicated to the promotion of social welfare and the encouragement of the participation of women in public affairs.

Why is Clemencia Lopez so little known in the Philippines?  Her family surmises that it was because she lived during dangerous times (nearly a quarter of the Philippines’ population was killed during the American period of “pacification”); it was also a period when Filipino historians were discouraged from writing about individuals whose actions were construed as anti-American. 

Manuel Quezon III, in a lecture about Clemencia at the NationalMuseum in 2011, said, “Her speech before the New England Women’s Suffragette Association was very conciliatory, very dignified, very patriotic, but also in one respect, a radical speech…. Women ended up playing a major role in our independence movement not just during the Revolution or the Philippine-American war but thereafter.”  

The Lopez Family of Balayan Foundation is working to help bring Clemencia’s story to light.  On February 8, 2013 they hosted the unveiling of a marker from The National Historical Commission of the Philippines, honoring Clemencia Lopez. 

The event also marked the opening of an exhibit entitled “War and Dissent: The Philippines and the U.S. 1898-1915,” which features letters from the Lopez siblings, detailing their experiences under American rule. The exhibit is on loan from The Presidio in San Francisco and can be viewed by visitors to Casa Grande, the old Lopez home in Balayan, Batangas, only a two-hour drive from Metro Manila.   

Clemencia Lopez died in 1963 a virtual unknown in Philippine history. To her family (including this writer, whose mother was a niece of Clemencia), she was the elegant “”Tita Memeng” who, unfortunately, never spoke about her achievements. A movie project based on her life is in the works so that her story can find its rightful place in our collective memory.  

Lyca Benitez-Brown spends her retirement shuttling between projects in the U.S., the Philippines and Europe. Her latest documentary was Bessie Badilla’s “Dance of My Life” which was shown at Cinemalaya in 2012 and at several film festivals in NYC, Chicago, Honolulu, Thessaloniki (Greece) and Singapore.

A great article on what will hopefully shed more light on Miss Lopez’s actions.

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It's Been A Long Time, But I Can't Stop 'Til The Break Of Gong

It’s Been A Long Time, But I Can’t Stop ‘Til The Break Of Gong

Hello kulintang fans! The last blog post was quite a while ago.  Looking at the timeline of content posting stings a little bit, but I am encouraged by all of you who comment, reblog, follow, like, and subscribe to Kulintronica feeds and also everyone who talks to me in person about how they have been looking for music like Kulintronica that brings indigenous Filipino music into today. …

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Yes I actually do this to my #kulintang. Rubber mallet, trusted boss tu-12h and plenty patience tunes it.

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I bring you #kulintang

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Backstage assembly #kulintangontheroad #kansascity #kulintang

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Coming soon to an airport near you! It's my #kulintang! #kulintangontheroad @tsa

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Sound check with @oftk #thegetdowns (at Waterfront Warehouse)

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Getting a #Tagalog lesson from #opm rocker #wencycornejo (at Digital Recording Episodes)