The Magi's Journey - Nilo Alcala
SBSO |  Dean Anderson, guest conductor

Composer’s Notes:

When I wrote this piece, I was imagining what it must have been like for these Magi to be summoned by this brightly shining heavenly light. These practitioners of ancient knowledge, especially pertaining to the study of the stars, are believed to be from different parts of the world - Persia, Arabia, India, and even as far as China. I imagined that the appearance of this bright cosmic, heavenly light must have been baffling but at the same time compelling that they left everything to follow where the light leads. 

Present day astronomers trace this bright light to an extremely rare astronomical alignment of several planets and other heavenly bodies some 2000 years ago, resulting in a single and and noticeably and unusually bright heavenly light for dwellers on earth!

As I conceptualized  the piece, I tried to trace the journey of these men  beginning from the mystical alignment of these heavenly bodies and it’s appearance to these men — and I tried to “follow” them, through a sonic, musical journey up until they reached where the child Jesus was with his parent Mary and Joseph. I imagined the travel was arduous, long, difficult, but also extremely exciting and full of adventure! And to represent this, I wanted the music to have this single motif the you would somehow recognize throughout the work, - but the music environment , the texture it is surrounded with changes constantly, as if traveling from one place to another — and finally reaching a culminating point, thats very cathartic, and possibly emotional - as they give homage to this child that they consider as extremely special.

The Magi's Journey - Nilo Alcala

Nilo Alcala’s compositions and arrangements have been performed in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. His choral suite Manga Pakalagian has been hailed as “extraordinary...” (Eric Whitacre), “very fine...” (Morten Lauridsen), “...powerful... spectacularly engaging” (Lauri’s List), “...exuberant and at times hypnotic...”(Cultural Cocktail Hour), and “...scaled peaks of genius” (Asian Journal).

Alcala made history for being the first composer from the Philippines to receive the prestigious Aaron Copland House Residency Award (2017), as well as the first Filipino to be commissioned by the Grammy-nominated Los Angeles Master Chorale and premiered at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. 

Alcala’s awards also include the POLYPHONOS Young Composer Award from The Esoterics (Seattle, WA), the 2nd Prize Asian Composers League Young Composer Award (Israel), and Ani ng Dangal (Harvest of Honor) from the Office of the President of the Philippines. His commissions include the National Music Competition for Young Artists (NAMCYA); Andrea O. Veneracion International Choral Festival; Korean Ministry of Culture; Asia-Europe Foundation; and premieres by the Metro Manila Concert Orchestra. 

Alcala was composer-in-residence of the Philippine Madrigal Singers (UNESCO Artist for Peace) which premiered his works in international competitions such as the Florilege Vocal de Tours (France); the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing (Italy); and events including the American Choral Directors Association National Conference (Dallas, TX); the 9th World Symposium on Choral Music (Argentina); and America Cantat 7 (Colombia). 

An Asian Cultural Council grantee, Alcala is also a Billy Joel Fellow at Syracuse University where he earned an MMus in Composition and received the Irene L. Crocker Music Award. He holds a BM in Composition at the University of the Philippines, graduating Magna cum laude. 

A versatile composer, Alcala also scores for the screen. His music for the film Homecoming (Gil Portes, Director) earned nominations for Best Musical Score at the Metro Manila Film Festival and Star Awards for Movies. He is also part of the composers team for Train Station, a ground-breaking international film by CollabFeature with 40 directors from 25 of countries. Alcala also recently scored White Horse Pictures’ short documentary Candlestick Park Fans (The Last Ticketed Concert of The Beatles) to promote Ron Howard’s “The Beatles: Eighth Days A Week”. He is currently music director of Club Six Studios, a Silicon Valley-based mobile video game company.

The Magi's Journey - Nilo Alcala

nilo alcala | composer |