This book is a cultural history of the Philippines from 1898 to1998, outlining the role of music in defining nation and the influence of national-level politics on shaping musical expression. The work traces three themes that suffuse the musical articulation of nation and nationalism. The first is a broad concern with modernism as an impulse in the development of Philippine national character in a postcolonial setting and, more specifically, how modernism becomes apparent in music. The second theme is the inescapable condition of hybridity that pervades nationalistic expression as much as it d ... More

This book is a cultural history of the Philippines from 1898 to1998, outlining the role of music in defining nation and the influence of national-level politics on shaping musical expression. The work traces three themes that suffuse the musical articulation of nation and nationalism. The first is a broad concern with modernism as an impulse in the development of Philippine national character in a postcolonial setting and, more specifically, how modernism becomes apparent in music. The second theme is the inescapable condition of hybridity that pervades nationalistic expression as much as it does other aspects of individual, community, and national identity. The third theme deals with cultural politics, including the tensions between official statements and the multifarious expressions of artists that are variously in compliance with and in contestation against the aims of the state. The main topics of the book include nationalist composers of the early twentieth century; folkloric performance of the nation by the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company; the institutionalization of culture through the Cultural Center of the Philippines under the Marcos regime; the musical ambassadorship of the Philippine Madrigal Singers; alternate expressions of nationalism during the first People Power Revolution of 1986; and the products of musical nationalism created for the 1998 centennial of independence from Spain.