Music of Diverse Cultures

Choral music is a really important part of the Philippine music tradition. In the mid-1900s, performing choirs began to emerge and increasingly gained popularity.  Philippine choral arrangers such as Robert Delgado, Fidel Calalang, Lucio San Pedro, Eudenice Palaruan among others have arranged versions of folk songs, patriotic songs, and love songs.  The Philippine Madrigal Singers is one of the most well-recognized professional choral groups not only in the Philippines, but also internationally. Winning competitions, the group became one of the most famous choral groups in the Philippines. Here is a video of them singing an arrangement of “Prayer of St. Francis” by Philipine arranger Robert Delgado.  Manoj Rai is a refugee from Bhutan. After being subjugated to persecution, Rai left for the border and was sent to eastern Nepal with others from Bhutan. Thousands of refugees from Bhutan lived under plastic sheets by the side of the Kankai River in Jhapa, Nepal for...

I interviewed my mother for this blog entry. Music has always been a big part of my mother’s life. I remember always hearing her get ready for work while listening to music, and she played the radio in the car every day when she took me to school. When she was young, my mother and her siblings all took piano lessons. She didn’t like the piano because she knew that she’d never be as good as her brother and sister, so she didn’t practice. She loved to listen to INXS, Elton John, Janet Jackson, James Taylor, U2, and Luther Vandross on 45s and LPs(33s)on a record player, 8 tracks, and cassettes. She shared a room with her sister and they plastered the walls with posters of their favorite artists. When they got home from school, they would turn their music all the way up, dancing and singing in their room until their father came and made them stop. She started playing the flute in 7th grade, and enjoyed playing in marching band and concert band until she graduated high school. She brags ...

I did some research on a Syrian-born female singer named Asmahan. Her family moved to Egypt when she was three and that is where she began singing. It is said that her voice was one of the only female voices in Arab music world to pose serious competition to that of Umm Kulthum, who is considered to be one of the Arab world's most distinguished singers of the 20th century. Asmahan’s  family knew the composer Dawood Hosni, and she sang the compositions of Mohamed El Qasabgi and Zakariyya Ahmad. She also sang the compositions of Mohammed Abdel Wahab and her brother, Farid al-Atrash. Asmahan’s vocal style was unique compared to other Middle Eastern singers of that time. In some of her songs, she would switch from the traditional Arab style to classical Western style.  In 1941, during World War II, Asmahan returned to Syria at the request of the British. She was on a secret mission to notify her people in Jabal al-Druze that the British and Free French forces would be invadi...

Billie Holiday was an African American singer known today for her influence on Jazz and Swing.  As today is MLK Day, I thought I’d write about one of her songs that aided the Civil Rights Movement, “Strange Fruit.” Released in 1939, this song protested racism and the lynchings of African Americans in the South. The song's lyrics are a metaphor linking a tree’s fruit with lynching victims. "Strange Fruit" originated as a poem written by Jewish-American writer, teacher, and songwriter Abel Meeropol under his pseudonym Lewis Allan. In the poem, Meeropol expresses his disgust at lynchings inspired by Lawrence Beitler's photograph of the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana. In 1978, Holiday's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. It was also dubbed "a declaration of war ....

I attended a private school until I was in 8th grade.  Music was mandatory, whether it be through choir or band.  I chose to do both and I played the clarinet for about 3 years. I’d like to think that gender-wise, the band was pretty evenly spread out. There were a few girls in the percussion section, a girl on the trombone, and a guy on the clarinet. In the choir, there were a few guys in the alto section, which I thought was cool. When it came time for my brother to choose an instrument, he wanted to play the flute.  My dad wouldn’t let him because he said it was a “girl instrument.” So, we bought a trumpet and Evan played it for about 3 minutes and never practiced or picked it up again. Now, we joke that Evan could be a flute prodigy and we wouldn’t even know it.  When I switched to public school in 9th grade, I didn’t participate in music for a year.  Then, in 10th grade, I became the accompanist for the school chorus. They were the stereotypical high sc...

In today’s culture, there is a fine line between appreciation and appropriation. In class, we learned about how indidgenous communities were whitewashed and had bits and pieces of their culture taken away.  In the nineteenth century, Native Americans were discriminated against because of their clothing, traditions, and language. During the psychedelic era, Native American styles became part of hippie fashion. When Jimi Hendrix wore fringe and beads, fans saw it as trendy, not something Native Americans wear to honor their ancestors.  Going into the punk era, mohawks were popularized as an outward sign of rebellion. However, the men of the Native American tribe by the same name sported this hairstyle when going to battle as a sign of bravery and to protect women and children.  In the later part of the twentieth century, a band called Redbone gained massive success and flaunted their heritage from the Shoshone and Yaqui tribes by wearing Native clothing on TV while...