TRANSITIONS: A Southeast Asian Composers showcase

DALUY [i.e., 'flow'], is a music composition made up of five separate environmental "soundscapes" all of which were composed by Professor JONAS BAES. Written during his studies with famous German composer Mathias Spahlinger in 1994, and dedicated to his daughter Patricia who was born that year, DALUY's five soundscapes are to be rendered separately, so that they connect a whole event, a concert or a social forum, into one integrated whole. In this performance rendered in November 2014, the five soundscapes each played in between short film clips, each clip dealing with issues relating to Philippine natural and social environment, as being suggested by the musical nature of each of the five soundscapes. The soundscapes created images that brought the messages of the film clips into the emotional and cognitive depths of those who witnessed the performance.

The original ensembles written in the music score of DALUY call for bamboo instruments; in its twentieth year however, we witness this work rendered on metal: five large tamtams, five flat gongs [gangsa], five saxophones, and about a hundred fifty iron-nail "peace chimes" to be played by the audience; the work concludes with a lullabye [ud-udan] sung in leader-chorus style, and with text entitled "sanggol" [child] by feminist poet Ruth Elynia Mabanglo.

DALUY was rendered by ensembles from the University of the Philippines College of Music with the audience. This special performance celebrates DALUY’s twentieth year, and is one of the featured activities of PROJECT BAKAWAN, in cooperation with the UP College of Music Faculty Concert Series. The UP CINEASTES, a group of young filmmakers from the UP College of Mass Communication, collaborated with Dr. Baes in bringing sound and imagery in an informative, and interactive music that aims to invoke critical consciousness and conscientization.

2019 Performance by TUGMA (Manila)

DALUY (Flow) is a set of five movements composed by JONAS BAES in 1994, the year of the birth of his daughter Patricia, to whom this work is dedicated. It was composed in Freiburg (Germany) under the guidance of Mathias Spahlinger, and was to culminate his studies at the Musikhochschule Freiburg i. Br. in the 1990s.

In DALUY, the five separate movements are meant to be rendered separately within events like programmed performances, or in social forums. It is meant to frame the entire event into one integrated whole. The second movement (DALUY 2), which is featured in this video is written for five interlocking instruments, in this occasion, flat gongs or the 'gangsa. While the patterns of DALUY 2 invoke the traditional patterns of Kalingga music of Northern Philippines, in the composition, this pattern is subject to dissolution, which is symbolic of the cultural politics within a mode of production dominated by powerful stakeholders and institutionalized culture brokers.

Highly integral to the rendition is the resultant "melody", suklit; that only emerges when skilled players execute the pattern. Such a quality is demonstrated by these five very dynamic and highly skilled musicians who make up TUGMA...Tugtuging Musika Asiatika...a student performing troupe based at the University of the Philippines.

The audio and video recordings were made by Jean-David Caillouet.

March 2019

Performance from YGF (Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival) July 8, 2011. Sixty players of different ages using every note of four gamelan sets of pelog and slendro, resulting in a wonderful horizontal poly-microtonal sound.

"Gangsaran Sapto" is somewhere between drones of La Monte Young and sound mass of Ligeti.

Gangsaran is a traditional 8-beat composition playing one note. "Gangsaran Sapto" is in memoriam of Sapto, the founder and producer of the YGF, who loved both traditional classical Javanese gamelan, and electronic avant-garde combinations.

This work presents a sonic space for a pianist to interact with the piano resonances. The images of weaving and coral reefs point to the temporal and spatial aspects of this interaction. A muiscal image has been established which then becomes the subject and space through which the pianist navigates through time musically. CSS Showcases SG New Music Talents 2020 is a digital production by the Composers Society of Singapore (CSS). This digital concert programme is made possible by the Digital Presentation Grant (DPG) from the National Arts Council (NAC) Singapore. Filming at Pavane Recording Studio on 23 Sep 2020 (W) Pianist - Churen LI Sound Engineer - GAO Yang (Pavane Recording Studio) Director of Filmography - Aaron Andrew ANG (Hei Studio) Camera Assistant - CHAN Qi Yan (Hei Studio) Producer and AV Post-Production - Timothy S. H. TAN Special thanks to Pavane Recording Studio https://pavanemusic.com/ , project sponsor Eight Tones Music School https://www.eight-tones.com.sg/ , and Timothy S. H. TAN for making this digital production possible.

B-L Piano Duo (Bertram WEE and Lynette YEO)
Esplanade Recital Studio
20 August 2019

Rub Dub for 2 pianos was inspired by imagining what two identical instruments can do, when placed facing one another as is often laid out as such in performance.

The title alludes to the recording technique of dubbing, to electronic techniques used in dub music, and to its related dance genre dubstep; all the musical and kinetic qualities of these terms are somehow worked into the very fabric of the music. In addition, ‘rub’ not only rhymes with the word ‘dub’ but also to me relates to ‘rubber’ with its elastic quality, and somewhat sounding like ‘rob’. These suggestive terms not only point to what the duo are doing in time, but also to time itself.

So as you might sense, this work arose from the meeting of a range of ideas, directly or obliquely related, or totally unrelated, though I cannot quite say which came first, ideas or the music.

As far as I can remember, the wish to write a work deserving of this wonderful B-L Piano Duo, to engage their ever inspiring musicianship, must be the original reason for taking time during my hectic travels in Germany and Korea to complete Rub Dub this year. I am grateful there are still musicians who love music enough these days to delight themselves with avoiding trouble-free new works!

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From the concert "Dialogues and Reflections" by the Composers Society of Singapore (CSS) in collaboration with Asian Composers League-Korea (ACL-Korea).

Esplanade Recital Studio | 20 Aug 2019 (Tu) | 8:00 PM

Video: CHUNG Ee Yong
Audio: Timothy S. H. TAN

The Composers Society of Singapore (CSS), formed in 2007, fosters the creation of new music by Singapore composers, and promotes musical works both locally and abroad through concerts, conferences, discussions and other activities.

This composition reveals the various elements of my writing for Chinese instruments that are at once original and eclectic. I am particularly interested in incorporating various Asian musical practices such as Chinese dialect folk songs (especially Hakka storytelling and mountain songs), Gamelan music from South East Asia, Indian ritual and ceremonial music, ancient Chinese court music, and chanting of classical Chinese poetry, Korean Pansori music, and Japanese Gagaku music to create my own compositional techniques and languages.
performed by Cloud Teo and TaiHe Guzheng ensembe


In this composition, the rich palette of constantly expanding instrumental colours, performance techniques, are also enriched by the Chinese culture, traditions as well as the multi-layered ethnic and cultural from the South East Asia Gamelan music heritage.