It was the last week of December 2025. Many horoscopes of the day unanimously told me to channel my inner turmoil elsewhere for self-care. However, this particular one got my senses tingling. One renegade write-up told me to go ahead and make people disappointed. No one enables bad behaviour more than a single piece of horoscope advice! Never mind, I’m a grumpy kitty boy. I’ll gladly take it.

I jest. (Of course, jokes are half-meant — I actually followed it and didn’t regret every single bit of it).

There’s actually more to it. I find deeper truths to this advice. We’re obviously allowed to disappoint people. Coming from my troubled teenage years of internalized perfectionism, I’ve slowly learned that it’s simply human not to satisfy people’s expectations. I’m soothing my younger self as he once burned himself out of a dream to be a concert pianist because of this delusion. When the pursuit of excellence becomes detrimental to one’s well-being, excellence itself ceases to exist. It’s okay to wean oneself out of this pattern.

I had to confront this again recently as a composer. I spent many months, working and struggling to churn out a commissioned work. This project is much more than just a musical piece. (If you know my practice, you’ll understand). I did my fieldwork in the form of recorded interviews and transcriptions. I traveled and recorded sounds. I have my materials in check. I was running against the clock to finish engraving a complex full score. But communicating and providing updates to a collaborating ensemble felt like taking so much time and mental energy that I opted to reserve all my energy to completing the work instead. I became silent. The ensemble’s deadlines ran against my schedule — I was juggling other projects and research work. Personal life events led me to a lonely, grieving phase, further blocking my productivity. In the end, the ensemble cancelled the collaboration right when I got the time and headspace to actually sit down and write them an email. I was plowing through all the way, and yet I missed their deadline. I was lonely and heartbroken, only to be further dragged down in a professional capacity. They didn’t know all that. They never bothered to know.

There’s much to be said about capitalist, commodifying ecosystems where we composers work. Collaboration is a two-way street, with attention to care and empathy. It isn’t simply a transactional exchange of services, void of relational labour. I would have appreciated check-ins to establish a deeper collaborative relationship. Without that relationship, months of precarious work that went down the drain felt like exploitation. However, this will be for another conversation. I learned many things from this situation — as far as this post is concerned, I learned it’s okay to disappoint some people in a professional capacity. Artists are human, not machines. And definitely not generative AI machinery.

Ending the year 2025, I realized that my whole year heavily revolved around “fieldwork” — activities out on the field. I’ve long doubted trends, communities, and overall conformity to existing establishments and ecosystems. My compositional practice stretches beyond sound nowadays, reaching towards meaning-making and storytelling as it intersects more with my art journalism practice. I write complex scores for musical pieces as usual, but music is no longer just sound to me. I find it difficult to identify positive role models that could guide me forward, even when I see some practitioners who do work in marginal proximity to mine.

It’s a surprise to me then that doing fieldwork made me see things through. I’m no anthropologist nor sociologist — I didn’t even take anthropology classes in my student years. Learning on the job was just the nature of it all. The most important thing is that my practice now also dips its toes into social engagement. I have my musical undergraduate studies in the Philippines to thank for that. Back home, there’s no option of not being socially engaged. Detachment from socio-political landscapes makes you accountable to being socially irresponsible. There is a social cost to apathy.

Three significant fieldwork highlights deserve some mention to encapsulate a productive year for me.

(1) My one-month Macdowell fellowship and artist residency (Peterborough, NH) in April and May was a nurturing and inspiring time. I finished writing a Musicworks article (one that was published during the summer). I did pre-compositional design work for two big projects. I recorded two interviews with correspondents for an upcoming musical work/audio essay. Talking to Patricia Rodriguez-Carranza and Azadeh Tajpour about passports and global mobility for this new work was a breath of fresh air to me, having personal experiences myself and trauma around holding a particular passport. These also rehashed my previous interview with Cedrik Fermont back in 2023 at Darmstadt — one that got published on Musicworks for Summer 2024. I made a goal to consolidate all three perspectives into one audio essay + live music, in conjunction with my magazine article publication. At this time, I’m no longer interested in branding this work as “Made in Macdowell.” The point is authenticity, truth, and the right timing to allow a work the maturity it deserves.

(2) A trip to Vancouver in May immediately followed this artist residency. Renee Fajardo and I recorded three interviews with Vancouver-based correspondents for the web digital release of my song cycle Liham (with libretto by Revan Badingham III). The official webpage included stories of Filipinx-Canadians to highlight the communities addressed in the song cycle’s theme of diaspora. Hearing the stories of Nigel Elivera, Bennet Miemban-Ganata, and Bert Monterona created a contrasting patchwork that unfortunately intertwined with the aftermath of the Lapu-Lapu Festival tragedy — the car rampage that claimed at least 30 lives more than a week before I arrived in the city. Liham was officially released in mid-June during Philippine Independence Day. [Check out the song cycle Liham along with stories of the Filipinx-Canadian diaspora: https://www.lihamproject.com].

(3a) I haven’t gone home in the Philippines for 10 years. It was a combination of financial incapacities and loads of personal baggage that made me dismiss this possibility for so long. It was in Macdowell when I decided that it’s high time — there’s fieldwork to be done for an upcoming commissioned project anyway, so I have an official reason to do so. I bit the bullet and found myself later in Manila during September and October for three weeks. My agenda was to record sounds and interviews as much as I can, all tapping on the ecosystems surrounding the Philippine jeepney. (I should write about this in a separate post). My previous travels were already invested in recording sounds of public transit in other places. I asked Hans dela Cruz to serve as my research assistant, and his network led us to hearing stories from jeepney drivers including Nolan Grulla and Bong Tallada. [An additional driver declined consent for publicity]. Aside from all the socio-political underpinnings within such ecosystems, this particular period also served as my renewed personal engagement with the homeland. I learned a great deal beyond the nostalgia and bittersweet reckonings.

(3b) This particular research trip was also productive beyond my initial agenda. I presented the audio essay Kinalugaran (featuring Ramon Alfonso Soberano, Marie-Luise Calvero, and Riley Palanca) in an evening session at Library Una in Quezon City. I also took it as an opportunity to do a tour around the world: Singapore, Qatar (Doha), Germany (München, Nürnberg, Freiburg), Switzerland (Zürich), and Poland (Warsaw). Throughout these travels, I continued recording sounds/videos of public transit and sporadically noting observations in relation to the jeepney-themed commissioned project. I also met old-time friends, new acquaintances, and current project collaborators throughout this multi-city journey.

As far as performances went throughout 2025, I would like to express appreciation for pianist Stephen Eckert, who currently tours around my solo piano piece O forse, l’ho già perduta poco a poco… from the Darmstadt Summer Course (Germany) and the Bowling Green New Music Festival (Bowling Green, OH) to Memorial University (St. John’s, NL) this January. Catch their program named “Dear Teacher” for the Music in Memorial concert series at Suncor Energy Hall on January 13th — the concert program is dedicated to honouring grief and memory.

Same appreciation goes to mezzo-soprano Renee Fajardo, baritone Danlie Acebuque, and pianist Vivian Kwok as they recorded the song cycle Liham until early 2025. Fajardo and Kwok also presented the work recently at STAND Festival in Vancouver last November. The amount of time, attention, dedication, and relational engagement to understand and capture the musical work’s essence made this collaboration very heart-warming.

I also deeply appreciate my ongoing working relationship with Musicworks, with whom I have published eight magazine features so far. Thanks to editor Jennie Punter for being a very understanding human being amid all the crunch and grind surrounding production times. Let’s have more coffee times throughout 2026!

It’s heartbreaking to find love in 2025, only to have it taken away. I dedicate this part of my post to you — you, who I met for only 12 days and found happiness in such a short time. I don’t hold a grudge against you. I still remember you fondly, two months after the fact. Too bad that it can’t work out the way we want it. I hope you find your happiness and joy elsewhere as I continue to find mine.

What’s next now? I anticipate an orchestra project, a book chapter publication, more audio essays for this year. Maybe another trip to the Philippines. Maybe I’ll find love. A grumpy kitty boy deserves better for 2026, after all.

It’s time to disappoint more people!

Cover photo: Hans dela Cruz. Taken during my interview with Nolan Grulla on 19 September 2025 in Quezon City, Philippines.