Music of Makiling Ensemble

The Music of Makiling Ensemble
by Diwa de Leon

Labels

The Makiling Ensemble's music has been branded lots of time with different labels: Ethnic, Contemporary, Alternative, Indigenous, World music, World beat, Folk. But labels don't really say what the music is all about. The music of Makiling Ensemble is a fusion of inspirations from different music cultures around the globe. We would rather call our music as "Kakaibang Pinoy music" directly translated as "a different pinoy music". But then again, it depends.

Inspirations

The original music of Makiling Ensemble is a mixture of selected music cultures from around the globe. Elements of Indian, Arabian, Australian, Afro-Cuban, Keltic, Chinese traditional music can be heard in the ensemble's music. Since most members of the ensemble have formal training in Western classical music, procedures and principles from classical music are also applied. The
totality of the music however, is still biased on Philippine indigenous music. After all that is really one of the intentions of the ensemble: nationalism in music.

The ensemble's music can be described as Indian ragas and chants combined with violins and cellos, a T'boli dance in waltz time, Keltic melodies with the tune of violins and Philippine percussion, and Australian aboriginal rhythms fused with a traditional Maguindanao rhythmic mode.

•   Makiling Ensemble mp3s. click here
• Makiling Ensemble sample repertoire. click here
•   Critics on the Makiling Ensemble's music. click here
•   Instruments of the Makiling Ensemble. click here
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