Published
Gongs And Bamboos
Pagsamba stands as one of the strangest masses ever written, scored for gongs, voices and bamboos and recorded live in an open-air temple in the Philippines. This ritualistic composition reflects Maceda’s deep engagement with indigenous Filipino spiritual practices and his commitment to creating music that serves ceremonial and communal functions beyond concert hall performance. These recordings document Maceda’s unique position as both ethnomusicologist and composer, someone who spent decades documenting traditional Southeast Asian music while simultaneously creating entirely new forms of musical expression. His approach challenged Western musical assumptions about harmony, rhythm, and form, instead prioritizing texture, spatial relationships, and what he termed “drone and melody” structures derived from his fieldwork.
Everywhere at Once: José Maceda’s Musical Territory by Aki Onda
On José Maceda: A talk by Aki Onda
A Musical Atmosphere That Covered the Megalopolis – Text by Aki Onda. Published for the exhbition “José Maceda: Echoes Beyond the Archipelago,” curated by Aki Onda, at Western Front, Vancouver, 2024.