- Jose Maceda is a musician and scholar who composes, performs and celebrates ethnic music of Southeast Asia; he uses traditional instruments yet is described as "always avant-garde."
Composing music of past and present
At 80, Jose Maceda is energetically composing a dynamic hybrid between Western and Southeast Asian musical traditions.
"Ethnic music in Southeast Asia is inseparably intertwined with religion and mysticism in the region and coexists with nature," Maceda says.
The melodies created by the octogenarian have fascinated the world with their luscious expressions of the Southeast Asian musical spirit.
While modern music is increasingly performed by a small number of professional players using digital instruments, Maceda has tried to narrow the distance between the performers and the audience with music played by a large number of performers using traditional instruments.
His music is mostly played outdoors by tens or sometimes hundreds of performers employing traditional instruments, like the gong. Maceda's magnum opus, "Udlot-Udlot," was once played by 800 performers, and "Pagsamba" was performed by 100 singers and 100 players.
Applauding Maceda's unique activities, the late Toru Takemitsu, Japan's leading composer, once said, "This Phil-ippine composer, who listens to the eternal sound of the earth, is always avant-garde."
Yuji Takahashi, a Japanese composer who has known Maceda for 30 years, argues his music is an "antipode" to the current Western music.
"Limiting the use of technology to its minimum, Maceda seeks musical expressions well adjusted to nature," Takahasi says. "His musical theory has had such a great impact on Japanese and Western composers that they have started to take a fresh look at gamelan music."
Like most of the Philippine elite of his generation, Maceda studied in the U.S. and Europe when he was young. His contacts with "mechanical" Western music opened his eyes to Asian music, which is freer and more flexible, he says.
In the 1950s, Maceda began his field work on ethnic music all over Southeast Asia. His research covered areas where the natives didn't even have their own word for "music."
Maceda discovered common characteristics in the large variety of traditional melodies of many areas, such as the use of a unique bass sound called drone, repetition and polarity of melodies, and a vague concept of timing. From those features, he perceived a strong identification between the village community and special musical concepts born out of indigenous culture and ancient philosophy.
Maceda, who lives on the campus of the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, is currently doing comparative research on Asian court music.
"A line of thought unaffected by the real world links court music scattered throughout Asia," he observes. His research covers the court music in Japan, China and Korea.
As professor emeritus of the University of the Philippines, Maceda visits Japan once or twice a year. He plans to perform a new piece for children in Kyoto in November.
"Southeast Asian music reflects the richness and density of nature as well as the rituals of the timeless village communities in the region."
Nikkei Asia Prizes 1997 Front page
