Creative industries in Washtenaw County add hundreds of millions of dollars to the local economy. In the weeks and months to come, host Deb Polich, the President and CEO of Creative Washtenaw, explores the myriad of contributors that make up the creative sector in Washtenaw County.
ABOUT GEAN VINCENT ALMENDRAS:
Philippine banduria and traditional music. Gean graduated with degrees in Computer Information Systems and in Music, specializing in classical mandolin performance (under the tutelage of Francesco Cavallini) and a minor in violin; through the University of Michigan. Through the close tutelage of Maestro Antonio González from the Escuela de Mariachi Ollin Yolliztli Garibaldi in Mexico City, and his attendance of various International Mariachi Conferences and workshops taught by various professional Mariachi clinicians from prestigious groups like Mariachi Cobre, Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, and Mariachi Los Camperos, Gean is also trained in the playing style of Mariachi violin and performs professionally with a Mariachi ensemble under the Flint-based folks arts nonprofit, El Ballet Folklórico Estudiantil (EBFE). In 2014, Gean helped start —now Vice-President and Music Director of — the Philippine Arts & Culture Ensemble of Michigan (PACE-MI); a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing community-based instructional programs and resources through the promotion of traditional Philippine Rondalla music, indigenous Filipino music, and traditional folk dance. Gean was recently awarded the inaugural Arts Midwest Culture Bearers Award for Michigan, for his work of over 10 years in the Filipino-American community practicing and teaching indigenous Kulintang ensemble music from the Southern Philippines. Gean, an aspiring ethnomusicologist, is also a course lecturer of Philippine Ensemble Music at the University of Michigan Center for Southeast Asian Studies (UM-CSEAS).
RESOURCES:
Gean Vincent Almendras on Facebook
Gean Vincent Almendras on Instagram
Philippine Arts & Culture Ensemble of Michigan (PACE-MI)
Arts Midwest: Announcing the 2024 Midwest Culture Bearers Awardees
TRANSCRIPTION:
Deb Polich: Welcome to creative:impact, 89 one WEMU's weekly feature that scans the arts and creative horizon in Washtenaw County. I'm Deb Polich, president and CEO of Creative Washtenaw and your host. As creative:impact listeners have learned over the years, Washtenaw County is chock full of nationally recognized, award-winning artists and creatives. Our guest, Ann Arbor-based musician Gean Vincent Almendras, was recently added to that list. Arts Midwest named Geon one of its 2024 Culture Bearers. Let's meet him and find out about the culture and heritage of his work. Gean, welcome to creative:impact! And congratulations on being recognized for your work!
Gean Vincent Almendras: Thank you, Deb! I'm so honored to be on your show today!
Deb Polich: Well, and we're honored to have you with us! Culture bearers are defined as people who carry and pass on cultural traditions, practices and values. And then they share those between communities and generations. Arts Midwest's Culture Bearer Award celebrates creatives and artists who purposely do this work. I'd like to start with your culture. Tell us about yourself and your music.
Gean Vincent Almendras: Sure. So, ethnically, I am Filipino. I was born and raised in Cebu City, Philippines, and I moved here with my family in roughly 2004 when I was about eight years old, directly to Ann Arbor.
Deb Polich: And your music?
Gean Vincent Almendras: So, I was raised in a musical family with a lot of influences from different genres of music. But it wasn't until high school, I started to get more reconnected with my roots, and this is what Arts Midwest was kind of recognizing me for, because for the past decade, I've been really focused on indigenous Filipino music, specifically one tradition that comes from various indigenous cultures in the southern Philippines. And this is a tradition called kulintang. The kulintang, essentially, is a percussion instrument. It's a row of 8 or 9 brass or bronze gongs that are tuned in a pentatonic scale. And usually, this is accompanied by an ensemble of other larger gongs and drums as well.
Deb Polich: And is it a percussion instrument that stands on its own place that is played often on its own? Or is it usually accompanying other musicians and their instruments?
Gean Vincent Almendras: No. Actually, the kulintang is the main featured instrument in the context of its ensemble. Usually, it plays the melodies, while the other instruments are the accompanying instruments for the kulintang instrument itself.
Deb Polich: Oh, cool!
Gean Vincent Almendras: So, you get these larger gongs called the agong that kind of create a bass line. And we have some other medium-sized gongs called the gundeanun that usually provides like a counter melody. And then, we have drums that kind of just provide the rhythmic drive. So, it's really, very polyphonic with a lot of things happening, almost like a little orchestra ensemble or what my friends like to call it. It's kind of like Filipino indigenous jazz.
Deb Polich: I love it! I love it!
Gean Vincent Almendras: Yeah, I love this music! The music that's played is passed on orally through oral traditions, so nothing's really written down. And a lot of things happen to the melody based on the player who's playing them. So, there's a lot of improvisation going on.
Deb Polich: That role, really, as a culture bearer, you absolutely are telling the stories, telling the music orally through stories and teaching that way. That's fascinating! You know, this might sound like a provocative question and know that I'm offering it with respect. In a country where the arts are deeply Eurocentric, do you find that the general public--or even arts consumers--assume that people of color or people from other countries automatically are culture bearers?
Gean Vincent Almendras: You know, I haven't run into that issue so much in my experience as an artist. There are times when people ask about that, if I might know more about indigenous or native music from my own country. But a lot of the times, I haven't run into that issue too much, for that matter.
Deb Polich: Well, that's actually encouraging because I understand in other cultures, I should say, other art forms, people almost always expect the artist to carry that history and that information forward. This is 89 one WEMU's creative:impact, and our guest is Gean Almendras, a Filipino-American musician named a 2024 Midwest Culture Bearer by Arts Midwest. So, you and your mom, Gean, you joined others to create a community in Michigan and co-founded the Philippine Arts and Culture Ensemble of Michigan, or also known as PACE. What's PACE's mission?
Gean Vincent Almendras: So, yeah. Thank you for recognizing that. PACE-MI, actually, that was the moniker we're trying.
Deb Polich: Okay.
Gean Vincent Almendras: So, PACE-MI. But our mission is really just trying to encourage the spread and knowledge of indigenous Native Philippine music traditions, as well as dance traditions within our own community and within the greater community outside of our ethnicity, to encourage fellowship among our peers, but also to promote this culture within our diaspora.
Deb Polich: So, let's talk about that Arts Midwest Award. But I have to mention something--a very proud fact. Artrain, the touring museum on a train that I guided for years, was actually the catalyst for Arts Midwest's founding. When Artrain went on its first Midwest tour outside of Michigan in the 1970s, it brought together arts leaders from across the Great Lakes region. And as an extension of Artrain's mission to develop local and regional arts agencies, the seeds for Arts Midwest was planted at that time. And that's actually the case for regional arts agencies around the country--so, again, a point of pride. This Culture Bearer award that Arts Midwest has created this year, you are one of the first cohorts to receive this award. How did you learn about it? And then, when they decided on the award, how were you notified? And what's taking place since then?
Gean Vincent Almendras: Well, you know, it's very interesting. I actually also play mariachi music, even though I'm not Mexican.
Deb Polich: Okay.
Gean Vincent Almendras: I played the violin, and I was doing this artist-in-residency facilitation program with the University Musical Society--UMS, if you're familiar.
Deb Polich: Sure.
Gean Vincent Almendras: And one of the coordinators from UMS just recommended the Arts Midwest Culture Award application to me over email---I'm looking for names. Terri Park, yes. She encouraged me to apply, and so I did. The application wasn't too lengthy, thankfully. I just had a few narrative questions about my background, about myself, about my traditions--my cultural traditions.
Deb Polich: And if I recall, there are nine of you that were awarded this year. Have you all met together or connected in any way?
Gean Vincent Almendras: Not yet, but that is planned for the upcoming year. I think there's going to be a series of online sessions where we're going to be meeting and just having dialog with each other, talking about our traditions and how we can learn from one another within our own practices.
Deb Polich: And in addition to that, which I'm sure you're looking forward to, how has this award impacted you, your work, and what recognition are you catching because of it?
Gean Vincent Almendras: I'm very thankful for the financial contribution of this award because it just helps me expand on my craft a little bit more. A lot of what I've been able to do, at least within in the past ten years, to learn more about this tradition that I'm carrying is going to the Philippines myself and spending time within the indigenous cultures learning from master artists. And as you can imagine, that's probably not financially the cheapest.
Deb Polich: Sure, I imagine.
Gean Vincent Almendras: Right. So, having this funding from Arts Midwest really helped me expand a little bit more and be able to do more of that within the coming years.
Deb Polich: And with your work with PACE-MI. Is that how you say it?
Gean Vincent Almendras: Yup.
Deb Polich: I see that there's a fair amount of education involved with that.
Gean Vincent Almendras: Yeah.
Deb Polich: Will the work that you do in the Philippines help you expand on that work as well?
Gean Vincent Almendras: For sure. Yeah. A lot of the things that I've taken from the master artists who've been willing to share their knowledge in the Philippines, I usually take it back with me to our organization and to the classes that we teach. So, we have a group class of children who are learning this tradition as well on their instruments of their own orally. So, they're learning it from me orally. So, it's kind of like a cycle of where I'm learning directly from these master artists, and I'm passing on this knowledge to our youth.
Deb Polich: Continuing the culture and sharing! That's awesome!
Gean Vincent Almendras: Exactly!
Deb Polich: Gean, thanks so much! And congratulations again on your award!
Gean Vincent Almendras: Yes, thank you for having me! And we are excited to share information about it!
Deb Polich: That's Gean Vincent Almendras, a 2024 Arts Midwest Culture Bearer awardee. Find out more about him and his work with PACE-MI at wemu.org. You've been listening to creative:impact. I'm Deb Polich, president and CEO of Creative Washtenaw and your host. Mat Hopson is our producer. Please join us every Tuesday to meet the people who make Washtenaw creative. This is 89 one WEMU FM, Ypsilanti. Public radio from Eastern Michigan University.
If you'd like to a guest on creative:impact, email Deb Polich at deb.polich@creativewashtenaw.org.
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