The Asian composer faces a very special dilemma by nature of his or her profession - the struggle against the dissonances that arise between the inherited traditions of the East and the acquired compositional tools of the West. At the Asia Pacific Festival & Conference 2007, where past met present and avant garde met traditional forms in meaningful counterpoint, the issue seemed all the more relevant. Whose music were we celebrating? Can we really lay claim to this tradition?

For Filipino composer, educator and musical activist Ramon Pagayon Santos, whose keynote address during the conference centred on these issues, our quest for self-discovery has only just begun.

OTE: From what you have seen and heard during this festival where do you think Asian composers are heading?

What we are seeing here is very significant. The people who are here at the festival actually have the same goals in the sense they are creating a new musical environment in Asia (from a very general perspective). But of course we come from different backgrounds, different cultures... we may have a certain commonalities in terms of our training (in the music schools in composition), but the commonality stops there because we come from different cultural environments with differences in our histories, in art, music and so on. Asia is always like that.

But right now I find that something substantial is happening. Listening to the concerts [at this festival], it seems that the pieces that are being performed here whether from a traditional music standpoint or from contemporary/art music standpoint, seem to be undergoing change - there is a kind of cross fertilisation taking place.

But where we are going I don't know. Because we want an Asian identity in our musical expression, which is shared by people who really come from different cultural histories.

OTE: The atmosphere here certainly is very positive, I think. Asian composers are asserting ourselves as a powerful voice, don't you think?

Yes, this is what I am feeling now, and it's a good feeling. But of course if you look at the larger world outside it's another issue altogether: how do we influence that larger world of music, of organisation, of progress, of technology, of politics...? There's a larger world to be addressed.

And what we are looking for is the medium by which we address that world. We want to have a world that is relevant to us as Asians; at least that is what personally I am looking for.

I felt this when I was a student. I was abroad for 5 years and even before that I was already studying music science and technology - computer music was just starting at that time. But when I came back to the Philippines after my studies about 25 years ago I felt irrelevant with that new knowledge, because the way of life in the Philippines is so different from America or Europe. So this is what we are searching for - what is it that is Asian?

OTE: Where do you think we should start looking?

We have to start from the beginning. We are rediscovering ourselves, in a way reinventing ourselves as Asians, but how do we do that after 500 years of colonial rule? You know, we cannot erase that, so it's a big challenge, and music is one area in which that challenge can be confronted.

OTE: Do you think at this point that Asian composers are ready to take on the world stage, if not as a leading voice, then at least as equals?

I think so. Even at the time when the Asia Pacific Festival was hosted in Manila in 1975 we had international composers like Lou Harrison and others who were taking stock of what was happening here in Asia.

And in fact I think that Asia will be an important part of the world in the future, economically, politically and culturally. So since we are the Asians we have to find out who we are in the light of all these developments. And music represents a larger world, a larger human phenomena,

What we are doing with music is seeking new, yet old, behavioural patterns - a new mindset. When I say new I mean 'renewal of what/who we are/were. It's a tough process, as I said, because of that period of foreign influence, or of non-Asian influence, I should say.

And music, being a very human form of expression, is really the core of the strategy in finding our relevance in this part of the world.

OTE: A point that has constantly been raised at this conference is that the music avant garde is still being driven by the West. Do you see us reclaiming that?

The thing is formal musical education: we inherited that from the West. But what we can do, and should do, for example in the Philippines, is expand the concept of pedagogy, because all our institutions have been inherited from the West. We must be aware of that.

And I think the way to go is expand the concept of education, of training, of transmission, and look at how music and traditions were transmitted before, and perhaps adopt those methodologies. We are of course talking about different phases - the substance, the methodology. And of course, ultimately, the wisdom.

- CH Loh
This article was published in Off The Edge in April 07

Former Asian Composers League Chairman Ramon Pagayon Santos was the former Dean of University of Philippines College of Music from 1978 to 1988 and President of the National Music Council of the Philippines 1984 to 1993. He has held the position of Commissioner of the Sub-committee on the Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts since 1998 and Professor of the University of Philippines since 1995. This interview was conducted at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington, New Zealand, where Mr Santos delivered a keynote speech for the Asia Pacific Festival 2007.

Jan 08