World Jazz in Diliman
By Jose Antonio Buencamino
The UP College of Music invites the public to comeand dance to the blending of grooves at World Jazz in Diliman as leading musicians in Jazz and World Music jam at the Abelardo Hall on November 4, 2016.A workshop on World Rhythms from 1-4pm will open the festivities, to be followed by a concert at 6pm featuring respected ensembles and artists specialized in the performance of Jazz, West African, and Afro-Latin music. This is an event of the Department of Musicology and the Department of Winds and Percussion, and numbers among the festivities celebrating the College’s 100th anniversary.
Bo Razon’s workshop, New World Grooves: Afro Diaspora Rhythms in the Americas, will be free for all.He has studied Cuban folklore and music under the EscuelaNacional de Arte in Havana, and around Matanzas under the SociedadAntropologica de Cuba.He established the Afro-Latin program in the Musicology Department of the UP College of Music in his time as a member of the faculty, and has shared the stage with notable musicians such as Laurence Hobgood, David Rubinson, and Patti Austin. Razon has performed atreputable halls in San Francisco, Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid, and is currently based in Southern Nevada. He will take part in the concert by evening.
The concert will also feature the UP Jazz Ensemble, which is a jazz group based in the University of the Philippines.Prof. RaybenMaigue founded the group in 1977, which has endeavored to broaden jazz appreciation in the country ever since. Maigue serves as its musical director, and is currently the chairman of the UP College of Music Winds and Percussion Department.Its repertoire rangesfrom works by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin to those by the Beatles and John Williams.The Tago Jazz Collective, comprised of musicians under the patronage of the Tago Jazz Café, will also add to the Jazz end of the performance spectrum. The Tago Jazz Café is an official partner in this event.
Among the ranks of the World Music ensembles isBrigada,the premier Afro-Brazilian percussion ensemble in the Philippines. Included also is the UP Kekeli African Drum and Dance ensemble, which performs traditional music and dances of West African peoples such as the Asante, the Ewe, the Dagbamba, the Dagara, and the Ga. The AdinkraLumads Djembe community, specialized in the performance of Djembe drum circles, will also perform in the evening.
World Jazz is a fusion of Jazz and World music; a marriage between the playground of western harmony and some of the innumerable ethnic, non-western musical cultures across the globe. Ensembles of this kind often mix instruments and styles that weave unfamiliar colors together, crafting vibrant and diverse tapestries of sound that the genre is known for.
Tickets to the concert cost PHP300 each, with a 50% discount for students. The UP College of Music and its Abelardo hall is located on the campus of the University of the Philippines, Diliman. For more details and ticket reservations, you may contact the college office by e-mailing gondour03@yahoo.
com or by calling its landline, 9260026.
