Jonas Baes

Who is Jonas Baes?

Jonas Baes is a Philippine composer born in Los Baños, Laguna in 1961. He enrolled in the University of the Philippines' College of Music in 1977 as a student of Ramon P. Santos, and encountered the musical compositions of Jose Maceda, attended several seminar-workshops of visiting lecturers, and did research on the music of the Iraya-Mangyan people of Mindoro, which became the inspiration for his compositions. From 1992-1994, he studied with Mathias Spahlinger in Freiburg, Germany. Baes is known for writing music utilizing "unorthodox" musical instruments like bean-pod rattles, leaves, iron-nail chimes, as well as various Asian instruments such as bamboo scrapers, bamboo flutes, and vocal music using Asian vocal techniques. His early works in the 1980s were influenced by Maceda in the use of large numbers of performers, while in the 1990s he experimented with various methods by which the audience becomes integral in the performance. At the beginning of the new century, Baes experiments with notions of structure-agency integration [after Anthony Giddens] and simulacrum [after Jean Baudrillard]. It is typical for social theory to influence the work of Baes who has made a mark on contemporary music and cultural politics in the Asian region. Jonas Baes is also active as an ethnomusicologist and writer.