WESTERN FRONT – Udlot-Udlot

As part of the multi-part project, José Maceda: Echoes Beyond the Archipelago, Western Front and the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre are pleased to present a performance of José Maceda’s composition Udlot-Udlot. Due to inclement weather, the performance will take place in the Exhibition Hall at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre.

Udlot-Udlot is a 40-minute composition for 30 up to 1,000 performers. Composed for simple traditional bamboo instruments, wooden percussion sticks, and voices, the work was designed so performers without musical expertise could equally participate. Modelled on tropical rainforest rituals and ceremonies, Udlot-Udlot implies a fundamental connection between human activities and nature, and explores how drone, colour, and melody come together as independent elements in performance. Udlot-Udlot was first performed in 1975 by 800 students at the University of the Philippines, and has since been presented internationally and recognized as a key work within Maceda’s career and the canon of avant-garde performance. In Vancouver, the work will be performed by community members who responded to an open call.

About the Artist

José Maceda (1917–2004) 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.

Acknowledgements

Presented in partnership with the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre with the support of the Government of Canada and the SOCAN Foundation.

José Maceda, Udlot-Udlot at the University of the Philippines, 1975. Courtesy of the UP Center for Ethnomusicology.

José Maceda, Udlot-Udlot at the University of the Philippines, 1975. Courtesy of 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.