James Carl Osorio

To trace the progression of Filipino music and its influences is inevitably a conversation entangled with the history of the country. When the Americans recognized Filipino’s sovereignty in 1946, the country charged itself in reconstructing its cultural identity. There are two things to consider here: the implications of the colonial violence that the Filipino people endured for almost four centuries, the repercussions of the Second World War, and similarly, the two-decade dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, whose wife Imelda Marcos, became the so-called patroness of Filipino arts, despite his administration’s corruption and controversy. Around this time of rebuilding, decolonization, and dictatorship, many Filipino composers emerge as mobilizing figures in searching and shaping Filipino musical identity and modernity.

In what ways can music be used as a form of activism? How can artivism be included the music curriculum? This lecture presents strategies in engaging group piano students with artivism through a constructivist lens.

How do songs during the course of the Armenian Genocide construct an understanding of the experiences and suffering of the Armenian people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire?

Who are the composers persecuted during the Holocaust? What stories do their musical works tell us that history doesn’t?