Midwest Filipinos

It Will Not Change

For Javanese gamelan (Macalester Asian Music Ensemble), tenor saxophone (Desmond Teague), violin (Arthur Motoyama), and piano (Paul Gabriel L. Cosme).

City Rain

(re)rooted

Fantasy Of The Consoled

The Answer

Performed by the JACK Quartet

Christopher Otto, violin
Marina Kifferstein, violin
John Richards, viola
Jay Campbell, cello

New York is a place that many Filipinos aspire to live in. It is a place that represents fulfillment of dreams, but it is also a place ridden with hardships and challenges. I wrote this piece while I was staying in New York, where I met many Filipino workers and immigrants from whom I had the chance to hear their experiences—from beautiful to heart-wrenching stories. A Filipino in New York is about them: a montage about immigration, hope, and tragedy. Each movement speaks to various sentiments I heard from Filipino immigrants while incorporating both the soundscapes of where I met them and specific elements from Philippine traditional musics and dances. 

“I. kundi-man sa new york…” is a double entendre on “kundi-man” which can either mean “kundiman” (a Filipino traditional art song) or “kung ‘di man” which means “if not” in Tagalog. This movement means “if not in new york…” as a gesture towards yearning for what the city offers, but also “kundiman in new york…” as it borrows vocal elements and the sentimental drama from this Filipino art song.

“II. “…the only ‘real city’ city”” comes from American novelist Truman Capote, and this quote is plastered everywhere once landing in John F. Kennedy International Airport. This movement tries to mystify what “real” is by creating conflicting soundscapes through various colors in the strings. It asks whether dreams are something real or an imaginative figment that fuels our neoliberal reality.

“III. “when will you sleep?”” borrows elements from hele or Filipino lullabies, but it is also a question my host and friend asked me frequently in New York—the city that never sleeps. While we often associate “the city that never sleeps” with endless fun and opportunities, it also reflects the harsh reality for many hardworking immigrants.

“IV. nasubli ng tren” borrows from the traditional dance from Bauan, Batangas—subli—which combines two Tagalog words: subsob or to fall with one’s face down and bali or broken. This frenetic dance is accompanied by relentless drumming which suggests its precolonial origins. This movement uses this kind of energy to emulate the elevated trains in Woodside, Queens also known as Little Manila. Yet, in many ways, it also reflects the unending toil that Filipino immigrants face, often relinquishing tiny moments of joy, like the brief times when elevated trains pass completely and do not drown out the music I hear in Little Manila.

“V. O Mutya” – mutya means jewel, but it can also mean beloved. This movement loosely quotes from a famous 1929 piece by Constancio de Guzman, Bayan Ko (My Country). This song came to popularity during the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution in the Philippines when the people peacefully ousted the late dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. The song often expresses yearning for home and the struggles that the country faced amid oppression and colonization. 

A Filipino in New York juggles many different immigrant realities, and it also serves a reminder for myself of the life I chose to live—one that, for now, wanders everywhere—often uprooted, yearning for home.

—Paul Gabriel L. Cosme
  Honolulu, Hawai’i

A Filipino In New York

Song of the Wanderer (2023)
for amplified soprano and mixed ensemble

Aubrey Aikens, soprano
Morgan Chan, electric violin
Brandon Hill, electric guitar
Peter Meyer, electric bass
Tevin Takata, drumset
Kevin Calamayan, glockenspiel
Benny Dugay Jr., piano

This piece explores what it means to repeatedly lose and regain one’s sense of home by bringing together wildly different sound worlds. It intertwines the Filipino art song, kundiman, with punk rock and metal. Kundiman prides itself in its extreme sentimentality and love. Hardcore rock is known for angst and electric textures with themes of aggression. I thought that combining these two seemingly opposite sound worlds allowed me to express often polarized feelings I have about leaving home and returning estranged, not knowing if it was I who changed, my country, or both. I borrowed text from the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal, who studied overseas and thought about these same questions.

Paul Gabriel Cosme

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