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Someone drops a grain of salt; Massive ocean waves jolt crowds awake! Wide-eyed stray cats rejoice.  White people clubs make white noise...Swirls of pea soup in hot, melting pots; Speck of dust remains untouched. Sun and stars rotate in skies, Lightning sparks bequeath fiery exploits; Tired fingers in silence. Rain fell throughout the weekend; Steel [...]

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I’m nothing but a machine, Hearing other’s pain but not my own; Why should I catch up with y'all? Frogs croak in the dead of night—I won’t wait for you to understand, Thoughts disappear in a flash. Riding my ‘unwanted' box, I float in waters beyond your reach—How can I land on the moon? Cities [...]

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The past weeks had been a tough time for many of our communities. Since the outrage over George Floyd's unjust death, the Earth's rotation suddenly went fast like a blur. A massive call against racism and police brutality swept many places, and radical initiatives like defunding or even abolishing the police force now simmers within [...]

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I previously wrote Part 1 to make space for subdued reflections about "social distancing." (I also recently wrote a more honest, passionate, and rather too personal post in my Facebook page...but I'll simply leave it there in that semi-private space). In this process, I find that repeatedly articulating an idea provides more refinement and clarity, [...]

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I started writing this post so many weeks ago, but I couldn't continue at that time. I stopped counting the days since everyone was forced to stay at home and practice social distancing. For some, this should be aptly named "physical distancing" and not "social distancing," but the latter has more profound implications for me [...]

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[I originally wrote this as a Facebook post yesterday.] Come to think of it, women educators have been very influential in my musical journey! Despite having completely different aesthetics from mine, composer Linda Catlin Smith provided provoking perspectives when I worked under her for the PIVOT Mentorship Program during 2017. As a result, I now consider Pangkur [...]

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In collaboration with the Canadian Music Centre, clarinettist Martin Carpentier and accordionist Joseph Petric commissioned me to write a new 6-minute work—I named the piece Kinamulátan—for bass clarinet and accordion. I've never composed for accordion before, and so Joseph handed me some introductory material he wrote himself. Surpassing the initial confusion over the keyboard layouts (including [...]

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I admit that being a composer is not enough for me. Sure, exploring sounds and making "cool" stuff is trendy nowadays. However, I'm not primarily interested in going with that flow. I also think of "cool" as problematic many times, with all its baggages of class privilege, positionality, hegemony, even capitalist machinations...in short, things that [...]

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The 3rd Golden Balangay Awards begins hours away as I write this post. Filipino-Canadians have established this award to recognize excellence and impact among the work of individual Filipinos throughout Canada. I've been shortlisted among other nominees for the Excellence Award in Music and Entertainment, and I traveled by train (encompassing 35 hours and thousands [...]