Echoes Beyond the Archipelago
- José Maceda
Western Front is pleased to present José Maceda: Echoes Beyond the Archipelago, a multi-part project about the pioneering work of Filipino composer and ethnomusicologist, José Maceda (1917–2004).
Maceda is a significant yet little known figure within the history of twentieth-century music, both for his fieldwork on Filipino musicality and knowledge of European avant-garde music. In particular, Maceda’s own musical compositions uniquely fused cutting-edge compositional techniques such as spatialization, attention to timbre, and musique concrète with traditional Asian instruments, rhythms, and structures.
Curated by the long-term Maceda expert Aki Onda, the exhibition provides greater insights into Maceda’s life and work through a display of photographs, print ephemera, objects, and scores that recreate Maceda’s archives to explore his work as an ethnomusicologist and his major compositions Pagsamba (1968), Ugnayan (1974), Udlot-Udlot (1975), and Music for Five Pianos (1993).
The exhibition will be accompanied by a community performance of Udlot-Udlot at George Wainborn Park on May 4, 2024; and a month-long installation of Ugnayan in Western Front’s Grand Luxe Hall from May 4 to June 1, 2024.
Curated by Aki Onda.
About the Artist
José Maceda was a Filipino composer, pianist, and musicologist recognized for bridging his fieldwork on traditional Filipino music with techniques of European avant-garde music. His work uniquely fuses cutting-edge compositional techniques such as spatialization, attention to timbre, and musique concrète with traditional Asian instruments, rhythms, and structures.
About the Curator
Aki Onda is an artist, composer, performer, curator, and is currently Curator-at-Large at Western Front, Vancouver. Their works are often catalyzed by and structured around memories—personal, collective, and historical. Crossing genres and disciplines, they have been active internationally in art, film, music and performance.
Accessibility
Western Front’s gallery is a ground-floor, wheelchair-accessible space with a partially accessible all-gender bathroom. Further details about visiting and accessibility at Western Front can be found here.
What to expect: The exhibition includes sound and video, and photographs, print ephemera, objects, and graphic scores.
Alternative formats: All videos feature transcripts.
Acknowledgement
With thanks to the UP Center for Ethnomusicology.
Western Front is a non-profit
artist-run centre in Vancouver.
We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.