RISM and the Philippines

Monday, December 1, 2014

In October, the RISM director, Klaus Keil, was invited to speak at a conference and workshop called Preserving and Cataloguing Music Cultural Heritage in Asia/Laon-Laon Forum at the University of the Philippines College of Music/UP Center for Ethnomusicology. He had the opportunity to present RISM to an international audience. RISM has had contact with the dean of the College of Music, Dr. Jose Buenconsejo, since 2012.

A large part of the conference was dedicated to ethnomusicology. There were presentations that described field studies and the use of sound and/or video recordings. These recordings are important sources for ethnomusicologists. So far, RISM has only dealt with written musical sources. Some participants expressed interest in RISM also documenting audio/visual recordings, but if and to what extent RISM can accommodate this requires more discussion.

One presentation in particular that was relevant to RISM was given by William Summers (Dartmouth College) called “Rediscovering Tagalog Theater in Manila, 1848-1898: New Information and New Sources.” The Tagalog Theater was located in the historical center of Manila and during this time it played works by European composers, especially from Spain, some of whom had immigrated to the Philippines. Summers was able to pull most of this information from newspaper articles. Unfortunately, historical music materials are probably no longer extant because of the devastating fires in 1945 that completely destroyed the city, including the theater and the national library.

Another interesting aspect was a collection of printed and handwritten music at the College of Music dating from 1870 to 1930. The entire collection is in need of professional conservation treatment because it had been in private hands for a long time. The particular climate of the Philippines, being very warm and humid, has led to rapid deterioration of the materials and quite a bit of effort is required for restoration. Luckily, individual manuscript pages are now being treated through encapsulation.

RISM was pleased to have this opportunity to strengthen ties with colleagues in Asia and we are looking forward to working with them in the future.

Photo: Ikeda Hall, University of the Philippines. Courtesy of Klaus Keil.

Category: Events