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Paul Gabriel Cosme

@paulglcosme

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Composer. Ethnomusicologist.
Living in Honolulu
From Quezon City 🇵🇭
~~~
More of the seriously fun stuff below:

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It’s such a joy to share my work this time not with my composer hat on but with my ethnomusicologist hat.

Salamat to Ric Trimillos as outgoing editor of Asian Music and to Verne de la Peña and the folks at @upethnom for all the help with the Maceda documents!

Terima kasih banyak to Andy Sutton for putting up with me and guiding me in developing this concept for the past two years!

It’s been fun and more fun like this in the works!

See full work in ‘Asian Music’ through Project MUSE. by @paulglcosme

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9 months ago

Another padawan joins the force. Paul Cosme from the Kingdom of Hawaii is bringing a new dimension of sound to the kulintang universe. Be there when the sonic rebellion takes the stage.

Early bird tickets are your gateway to the movement. Get them now!

May the gongs be with you, always.

#GongstersParadise #ANewForce #KulintangRising #TheGongsAwaken #FilipinoSoundscapes #MayTheGongsBeWithYou by @paulglcosme

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2 years ago

Meet the composers of New Jersey Symphony’s 2024 Edward T. Cone Composition Institute! Their new scores will be performed by the Symphony on July 20 in Princeton. Get tix at http://www.njsymphony.org/scores!

Featuring:
Leigha Amick @leighaamick - Cascade
Santiago Beis @santibeis - Spletna
Paul Cosme @paulglcosme - A Stranger in a Festival of Spirits
Jessie Leov @jessieleovmusic - Speculations on a Rainbow

🎥 @hellion.vision

#classicalcomposer #classicalmusic #newcomposition taken in Princeton, New Jersey by @paulglcosme

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2 years ago

Pah Elingan Ahari Jana has been on my mind over the past week since I have learned just a few days ago that he passed last September 25. He was 95 years old.

Pah Elingan was a master player of gabbang, kulintangan, and biyula. He, in his prime, know many kissa and vocal pieces fron the Tausug tradition. And he was one of the last gabbang makers of his generation.

I first met him in 2025 by coincidence while doing fieldwork in Tawi-Tawi. I was then studying tuning principles and formal structures of kulintangan across Southwest Mindanao. Meeting him and learning many a thing from him changed many aspects of my current work and research: from analytical and performance-driven to that of institutional. And my “happenstance” connection with now good friend and colleague Nelson Dino @neldy_jolo crystallized what that may look like.

We promised we would return the following year to preserve Pah Elingan’s repertory and knowledge for his posterity, and there were already worries about his health as he was 94 already then.

Time allowed us to once again learn from him and record what he still remembers albeit extremely faint. Neldy and Nurhaida Sali came with during that course of time with support from the MSU TCTO Office of Creative Works. Our recordings with him would build the foundation of the university’s archives and collection on sound, music, and performing arts, in great hopes that more Tausug would embrace and be encouraged to nurture their heritage.

Here are some of my favorite snippets from my very short time with him over these two years.

Magsukul, Pah Elingan. by @paulglcosme

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6 days ago

In celebration of Filipino American History Month, join us for Resonance: From Tradition to Tomorrow, this Saturday 10/10, for an afternoon exploring the evolving sounds of Filipino musical traditions. 🇵🇭🎶✨

Experience live performances by Filipino American electronic artist Luzi Kidlat and award-winning composer and instrumentalist Paul Cosme, followed by a special closing performance from Hawaiʻi Rondalla.

From contemporary electronic soundscapes, voice, and field recordings to kulintang, Southeast Asian gong traditions, and traditional Filipino string instruments, Resonance connects cultural memory and contemporary technology—bringing ancestral practices into conversation with new sonic futures.

📅 Saturday, October 10, 2:00-4:00 PM
📍 Capitol Modern is the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum
🎟️ FREE | Registration required via Eventbrite: https://tinyurl.com/3562ntnt
🇵🇭 Presented by the Philippine Consulate General in Honolulu and the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (SFCA).

#CapitolModern #FilipinoAmericanHistoryMonth #FAHM #BAYANIHAN #Filipino

Promotional graphic for Resonance: From Tradition to Tomorrow at Capitol Modern, featuring Filipino American electronic artist Luzi Kidlat, composer and instrumentalist Paul Cosme, and Hawaiʻi Rondalla. The event takes place Saturday, October 10, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM as part of Capitol Modern’s Filipino American History Month programming. taken in Capitol Modern by @paulglcosme

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11 days ago

This August marks my tenth year of going abroad to study.

As always, I write this while waiting to board at the gate, while listening to something, this time, Chopin’s Ballade no. 4.

It’s not a secret to anyone that I enjoy being at home in the Philippines for so many reasons. But to borrow from an old tourism slogan: it’s more fun in the Philippines!

It’s way more fun doing meaningful work in Batangas and Sulu Archipelago, and by extension the Southeast Asian region. It’s a kind of fun that is only possible, because of the people. It’s really the people at the end of the day.

That’s what I have really learned over the past ten years of continuously loving (and hating at times) this region, and by seeing and meeting so many people from different areas outside of what I call home.

Like Chopin’s Ballade no. 4, I feel like that repeated note from the main motif—wanting to resolve somewhere else, yearning resolution, yet ironically, it finds itself returning again and again to the same note, despite all the arduous effort to go away from it—that by the time the repeated notes no longer appear in the main motif’s last iteration, we now seek it, before bearing the stormy coda.

Now I wonder, if this decade-long journey reflects the form of the Ballade, which part am I currently in?

I guess we’ll find out! (maybe just before the coda—as I take my comprehensive exams 😭)

Salamat, magsukul, mahalo, terima kasih, thanks to all who made this summer so memorable and meaningful!!!

Sa mga hindi ko nakita this time around, pasensya na!!! Sa susunod na taon na lang ulit—we’ll make sure to catch up then! by @paulglcosme

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2 months ago

Iba talaga ang init ng pagtanggap sa Tawi-Tawi, quite literally and figuratively!

Magsukul to everyone who made this trip so meaningful, especially to @neldy_jolo for making the archiving project a reality and @ahrtmbhsn for planning such a fun week! More fun work ahead of us!

Salamat to MSU-TCTO, practitioners, musicians, friends, researchers, and everyone for such a great time! Sa susunod ulit! taken in Tawi-Tawi by @paulglcosme

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2 months ago

Jakarta, you have been full of surprises!

Music. Coffee. Friends. Food. Drinks. Textiles.

You were meant to be only a stopover, but the universe had other plans, and I’m glad I went with it! I have stumbled over random state celebrations, anime conventions, music festivals, and met with so many wonderful people in under a week!

I was reminded that this trip was my first trip without any formal business, conference, or music festival that I’m participating in. A dream “vacation” for any ethnomusicologist or composer I can imagine!

(i really should do more of these kinds of trips)

Until next time! taken in Jakarta, Indonesia by @paulglcosme

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3 months ago

Chiang Mai, it has been wonderful! The coffee, the music, reunions, and new faces!

The ICTMD Joint Symposium on the Performing Arts of Southeast Asia (PASEA), Applied Ethnomusicology (AE), and Indigenous Music and Dance (IMD) is a wrap! Thanks to all our hosts and fierce organizers from all three study groups!

Thanks to @maycosantaella and @oscar_murakami_smith for being a part of this gong-chime panel with me!

And thank you to the committee for recognizing my work as the best student paper! A big nod for the work “we” are doing on kulintang. Thanks to Ric Trimillos, @bellorin_kul_boom, and @dashofaridgee and family for all the continuous help throughout the past years!

Making music with the students at Chiang Mai University was also such a great experience! Hoping to see @muurikku, @fon.wasanta, @qainqs.tjalhtz, @1kxntt, @pho_ngsiri all do wonderful work in the future!

This entire conference certainly brought a lot of meaningful fun! Until next time in two years in Kuala Lumpur!!! taken in Chiang Mai, Thailand by @paulglcosme

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3 months ago

My birthday has been so much fun!

I spent the majority of it in Agoncillo, Batangas to document the subli there. I felt their devotion to the Poon, and it’s something that one cannot explain unless experiencing it in person. I feel extremely lucky and blessed to be a part of such a wonderful tradition!

As many of us have been advocating for years, much work has to be done in the Tagalog region, especially in Batangas—one that explicates how the natives negotiated and translated influences—from the Sulu Sultanate, to the Chinese, the Spanish, and Americans among others. Subli is one of such traditions that illustrates this complexity.

And it’s both relieving and exciting to know that it’s a tradition well passed down! (with much pop intonations though lol)

It’s also been wonderful and heartwarming to see how my own clan is getting to know our own heritage, and especially those sung traditions (not the subli) practiced in our very own town.

At dahil natural na maraming pista dito, naku, napasabak din talaga sa barikan 😭 aba’y ako din naman tuloy din lol by @paulglcosme

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5 months ago

Just today, I recorded a total of around two hours worth of sound from two different Marian celebrations—but it made me think back on twenty conscious years I come home during these May events. They were all “markers” and “celebrations” for me as a child. Now, they still are those, but it reverberates a sense of strong tradition—not one that the Spanish imprinted, but one that my actual ancestors, the Tagalogs, appropriated, culturally translated, and passed on. taken in San Jose, Batangas by @paulglcosme

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5 months ago

Going back home at this juncture somewhat feels routine yet feels much more welcome than recent prior years.

I have been writing these “preludes” or “postludes” depending on which perspective you’re looking at. This one, I write not at the gate but in the plane while waiting for everyone to be boarded. There is a calm to today’s flight back home—and perhaps it may be the grit that solidified or embracing radically that what these are, well, are becoming normal in many ways.

This (academic) year was not a walk in a park—in many aspects: a ton of productions, premieres, research to publish, presenting at conferences, among other things while trying to keep a sane mind. THE RECITAL! Dammit! That happened, too.

I find it deeply disturbing yet also comforting that the “grind” was not unique but commonplace—but what was more surprising was at my own realization that much has really occurred but I may have treated it as daily. I forgot how enjoyable it is to play Pokèmon (I have been playing Pokopia nonstop, addicting!!!)

Maybe these are thoughts as I do more fieldwork, write music, eat food, enjoy crazy music, and take my comprehensive exams soon.

Holler if you’re in Manila (or wherever in Southeast Asia! I’ll be moving around a lot! 😭😂)

(AHHHH I’m behind some May deadlines!) by @paulglcosme

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5 months ago