Kulintang Kultura: Danongan Kalanduyan and Gong Music of the Philippine Diaspora to be released 10/1 on Folkways

Listen to a sampler HERE: https://soundcloud.com/smithsonian-folkways/sets/selections-from-kulintang-2

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings will release Kulintang Kultura: Danongan Kalanduyan and Gong Music of the Philippine Diaspora on October 1st. The special two-disc collection pays homage to the late Danongan "Danny" Kalanduyan, a talented musician and generous teacher who championed traditional Filipino kulintang gong music in the United States, as well as the music and musicians of the Philippine Diaspora who have incorporated traditional Kulintang influences into rock, hip-hop, electronic, and other genres. Kulintang Kultura is the next release in Smithsonian Folkways' Asian Pacific America Series.

Listen to "Tarabiangan, Pt. 1," out today, by contemporary Kulintang-influenced guitarist Florante Aguilar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGgseesvmwc

Kalanduyan (1947 - 2016), or "Master K," was born in the Maguindanao region of The Philippines, and eventually immigrated to San Francisco in 1988. Spreading the sounds of Kulintang to a post-independence generation of Filipinos living in the US, his intention was to carry on the indigenous traditions that many centuries of Christian rulers in the Philippines sought to erase. Though not a religious musical tradition, Kulintang originated in Muslim regions of The Philippines and was originally popularized by Filipinos who practiced Islam.

After World War II, when the independence of The Philippines (1946) from the US left many Filipino Americans aliens in the country that they had been brought to as a result of colonialism (many to perform labor), there emerged a growing desire to explore Philippine arts that were not "tainted" by Western, Hispanicized, or Christian influence. 

By passing on the gong music of Kulintang, Kalanduyan not only familiarized many in the community with this "pure" Filipino art form, but also offered a way for many Filipino American musicians to add elements of their tradition into the contemporary music - jazz, rock, even electronic - that they were creating.

A survey of both Kalanduyan's own performances and those of the modern Filipino artists that cite Kulintang as an influence, Kulintang Kultura is divided into two parts and features over 100 minutes of music. Disc 1 features Kalanduyan's ensemble at the peak of their powers in a recording featuring a traditional Philippine repertoire. Disc 2 turns our attention to Filipino musicians in the diaspora who weave those traditions into electronica, hip-hop, rock, jazz, and other contemporary styles. Additionally, the collection comes with extensive liner notes.

Kulintang Kultura: Danongan Kalanduyan and Gong Music of the Philippine Diaspora is the music of Filipinos both rooted and scattered, both ancient and modern -- music that has held fast and continues to inspire. 

Folkways' Asian Pacific America Series is a collaboration with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. Previous releases have included Sunny Jain's Wild Wild East, Nobuko Miyamoto's 120,000 Stories, and No-No Boy's 1975.