Silindro Pilipino Project

The Silindro Pilipino Project makes its debut in Oakland with a music concert featuring veteran jazz and blues harmonica player Carlos Zialcita and Friends. The concert will be preceded by a lecture and demonstration on Filipino music and instruments.

Recipient of a 2018 Oakland Individual Artist Grant, Carlos Zialcita is the lead artist of the Silindro Project. The Project will include as its primary collaborators other Oakland-based musicians of Filipino and Pacific Islander descent, who will lend added perspective with kulintang gongs, the agong, gandingan, dabakan, babandil, kubing, kudyapi, guitar, ukulele, banduria, laud, drums, electric bass, and vocals. The Project will highlight the use of the harmonica (silindro in Tagalog) in pre-Colonial, Colonial, and post-Colonial music. The performance of traditional and original compositions in a variety of settings will illustrate how a distinctly Filipino American aesthetic can be achieved with the harmonica, a popular instrument in American music, that covers the gamut of artistic, historical, and cultural influences in today’s Filipino diaspora.