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I was born on the afternoon of November 1973 and lived the first 15 years of my life in the Republic of the Philippines before
moving to Canada in May of 1988.
I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University in Toronto in 1988 and earning a Master of Arts degree in composition
in 2001.
Among my composition teachers was the late avant garde-ist James Tenney and saxophonist/martial arts instructor David
Mott. Both men served as mentors and were a major influence in my composition process. Tenney instilled my love of musical
acoustics, mathematics, musical form and perception [as demonstrated Tenney's META/HODOS: A Phenomenology of 20th-Century
Musical Materials and an Approach to the Study of Form (1961; Frog Peak, 1988)] while Mott ingrained the value of emotionality,
musical sincerity, and the Zen approach to composition.
I firmly believe that in order to convey a thought, idea or emotion, the use of the existing historical building blocks
of music is crucial. You can't create a future without acknowledging the importance of the past. My inspirations include
Sir Georg Solti, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Carlos Kleiber, and Herbert von Karajan.
In the spring of 2011 In Memoriam, Op. 81 was recorded in the album North Winds III by the University of Manitoba Wind
Ensemble under the direction of Dr. Fraser Linklater.
On September 6, 2012 I was hosted and flown to Poland to attend the premiere of my Ave Maria, Op. 74a at Nowy Wisnicz
Castle by the Puellae Orantes Cathedral Girls Choir from Tarnow (www.puellaeorantes.pl) under the direction of Fr. Wladyslaw
Pachota with Aleksandra Topor (soprano) and the Airis String Quartet. It was a great honour for me to be asked to be at such
an event.
I took a break from music in 2014 when I decided to take up Theravada Buddhist monastic studies. This instilled the skill
of observation through the senses without the cloud of emotion. Hearing sound as it is rather than what we want it to be was
one of the benefits of that training. I have my teachers Ajahn Brahmavamso and Ajahn Viradhammo of the Thai Forest Tradition
and Bhante Khemaratana and Bhante Saddhasara of the Mahamevnawa Tradition (Sri Lanka) to thank for that. Since 2017 I have
been living a semi-monastic lifestyle in a Zen Buddhist Temple in Toronto.
I am a member of the Canadian League of Composers and of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada
(SOCAN).
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