Echoes Beyond the Archipelago

Description:

José Maceda: Echoes Beyond the Archipelago was a multi-part project about the pioneering work of Filipino composer and ethnomusicologist, José Maceda (1917–2004).

Maceda is a significant 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 provided greater insights into Maceda’s life and work through a display of photographs, print ephemera, objects, and scores that recreated 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 was accompanied by an offsite community performance of Udlot-Udlot at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, and a month-long installation of Ugnayan in Western Front’s Grand Luxe Hall.

Curated by Aki Onda.

Documents:

• José Maceda: Echoes Beyond the Archipelago brochure (2024). Essay by Aki Onda.