1:55 am | Monday, March 11th, 2013
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VIETNAMESE duo of Ho Khac Chi and
Hoang Ngoc Bic
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The music borne out of playing gongs
and bamboo instruments cannot simply be dismissed as an obfuscated form of
entertainment, for it has always been a mirror of “a life of spirituality,
subsistence, and of communing with nature in this part of the world,” said
National Artist-designate Ramon P. Santos during the first international
gongs-and-bamboo music festival, held Feb. 19-22 in Dipolog City, Zamboanga del
Norte.
“There’s a need to trace the roots
of these musical traditions in Southeast Asia to fully appreciate and explore
their significance,” he added.
Santos was director of the festival,
“Tunog-tugan,” which gathered over 200 artists and scholars of gong-and-bamboo
music from at least 11 countries in Asia and elsewhere. Output from the
interaction between artists and scholars will be used in formulating instructional
materials about traditional music, according to organizers. Tunog-tugan was part of the
Philippine Arts Festival (PAF) in connection with the National Arts Month
celebrations last February.
Tradition, academe
Organized by the National Commission
for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) through the Musicological Society of the
Philippines, University of the Philippines Center for Ethnomusicology, and City
Government of Dipolog, Tunog-tugan sought to promote awareness on gong-and-bamboo
music in schools and other academic institutions.
Because of this, according to
Santos, outreach performances in other municipalities in Zamboanga del Norte
were held as part of the festival, on top of the two-day conference and
workshops attended by scholars from even as far as France and Hawaii.
“We have asked our artists to
perform in schools outside Dipolog, so that people, especially the youth in
those communities, may experience our traditional gong-and-bamboo music,”
Santos said. “This promotion is also part of an effort to preserve our
culture.”
Outside Dipolog City, local and
foreign gong-and-bamboo musicians alike performed in Sindangan, Siayan, Sapang
Dalaga, Rizal, Dapitan City and Manukan.
Well-received performances
Four performing groups showcased
their art during the first night after the opening ceremonies.
The Dipolog City Bamboo Marimba
Ensemble, a national winner in the National Music Competitions for Young
Artists, delivered masterful renditions of songs using bamboo marimbas, claves,
and a triangle.
Among the pieces they performed were
the dance music “Can-Can,” composed by J. Offenbach; the Pizziccato Polka,
which had originally been composed for stringed instruments in 1892 for the
concerts of Eduard Strauss in Hamburg; and “Nais Ko,” by master composer Ryan
Cayabyab.
Exciting the crowd further were the
comic acts of a Vietnamese duo known as Khac Chi Music: Ho Khac Chi, the
world’s premier virtuoso on the dan bau, a one-string zither, who had taught at
the Vietnam Conservatory of Music before traveling to perform traditional music
in Europe, US and Asia; and Hoang Ngoc Bic, the first woman to win First Prize
on the dan bau in the Vietnam Competition of Professional Instrumentalists and
also the first woman ever to play the koni, a two-string stick fiddle.
Shamanistic rhythms
The duo played “Full Moon Dance,” a
traditional Vietnamese highlander music, arranged by Khac Chi to suit it with
the sound of a bamboo xylophone and the dinh pa, a bamboo pipe. The duo also
presented “Love under the Moonlight,” a folk song of mountain people played
with a long flute which can be blown at the same time by two performers.
Festival director Ramon Santos
Meanwhile, the Maguindanao Kulintang
Ensemble performed pieces dedicated to familiar Filipino traditions:
“Kaluntang,” a song played by farmers during harvest time; “Kaganding sa
Kulndet,” a fast rhythmic song played with only three gongs during weddings in
Maguindanao; and “Sagayan,” a shield-and-sword male dance performed during
wedding processions.
The lively presentations of the
Korean Noreum Machi, which specializes in playing percussion music known as
Samul-nori, a modern adaptation of the ancient rituals of Pungmul-nori farmers,
closed the first night.
The members played instruments and
danced to the tune of “Binari,” a song-prayer to drive away misfortune and
bring wealth, glory and long life; and “Noreummachi Sinawi,” the culminating
act with the four percussions kkwaenggwari, jing, jang-gu and buk played
alternately in even and odd meters to resemble a mixture of shamanistic
rhythms.
Emblematic start
The festival kicked off with a very
meaningful inter-faith prayer, led by Filipino youth from the indigenous
peoples of the North, the Lumads of the South, and Muslims and Christians.
NCCA chair Felipe de Leon Jr.,
himself a musician and head of the NCCA National Committee on the Arts,
formally opened the festival.
Before that, a colorful procession
of international ensembles, troupes, and duo of musicians signaled the start of
the festival inside the massive Dipolog Sports Complex. Parading were the foreign guest
performers, including the Senandong Budaya of Brunei Darussalam; Ensamble
Modero Palu of Indonesia; Persatuan Seni Budaya Sabah of Malaysia; Noreum Machi
of the Republic of Korea; Taiwan Bamboo Orchestra of Taiwan; Prasarnmit
Performing Arts Alliance of Thailand; and Khac Chi Bamboo Music from Vietnam
and Canada.
Equally talented local artists also
paraded: Cordillera Music Tutorial and Research Center (Baguio City); Ifugao
Performing Arts Group (Ifugao); Panay Bukidnons (Panay island); Maguindanao
Kulintang Ensemble (Cotabato City); Teduray Agong Ensemble (Maguindanao);
Dipolog City Bamboo Marimba Ensemble (Dipolog City); Bagobo Clata (Davao City);
Roxas Ahadas Yakan Music Cultural Group (Basilan); Ingat Kapandayan Artist
Center (Sulu); and the Subanens, the indigenous group in Zamboanga del Norte,
who treasure their long history of making music with gongs and were represented
in the festival by the Subanen of Siayan, Pusakani Datu Tangkilan and the Gbata
Dlepuyan Dance Troupe.
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