Aki Onda DirectionAki Onda Direction

Last year marked the centennial anniversary of composer José Maceda. Born in Manila in 1917, Maceda was a highly skilled pianist turned ethnomusicologist who later made it his life’s work to bridge the Western avant-garde with the indigenous sounds of his homeland, which he collected and studied through years of fieldwork. Maceda’s work is rich with cultural and historical significance, and he dreamt of creating a new model of Asian music. He left behind several ambitious and provocative works from the ’70s, including music with instrumentation for 100 cassettes, 20 radio stations, or thousands of performers in open-air ritual. Despite these singular achievements, he remains an elusive and mostly forgotten cult figure. Outside of the Philippines, his work is surprisingly under-recognized and rarely performed, and the critical discourse around his work is severely outdated. How can we recontextualize Maceda’s work within the current frameworks of experimental and contemporary music? How do his ideas as a vital alternative thinker and practitioner, bridging the East and West, impact today’s art practices? What do we make of his entangled political relationship with the Marcos regime, especially when considered alongside his compositions which are seemingly apolitical? The exploration into Maceda’s work has only just begun, but for now these remain open, unanswered questions.