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Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท

@silpayamanant.bsky.social

Intercultural & Southeast Asian Music Researcher, Composer, Educator. Founder Saw Peep Intercultural Orchestra. Host of BBC "World of Classical." he/him 🖤 🩶🤍💜

616 Posts2785 Follower 166 Folgt

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · last mo.

I have no words... 😑

Colorful (likely AI) image of Indian musicians playing a guitar, sitar, table and possibly a swarmandal and a dancer with text that reads:

"2026/06/19

Asian Music Styles: A Complete Guide to AI Music Creation

Explore Asian music styles and subgenres, and master AI music creation techniques. Create professional Asian music with MusicMake. ai."

Dark Jaguar @darkjaguar64.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Asexual" is now a flagged word in government documents. Of course, this makes it hard to discuss biologically asexual creatures in nature, but they only care about fighting the "woke", so whatever problems this causes, they're still going to do it. Be alert! #asexuality pen.org/banned-words...

Federal Government's Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship

Banned words list 2025: The federal government is banning a growing number of words to comply with executive orders from President Trump.

pen.org

Saw Peep Pan-Asian Ensemble @sawpeep.bsky.social · 2mo ago

We are excited to be a part of the Artsreach MeX Project 2026/2027 season! For more info about the program, visit this link: "Kentucky Performing Arts ArtsReach MeX Project Elevates Local Artists and Organizations" www.kentuckyperformingarts.org/blog/kentuck... @silpayamanant.bsky.social

Image of a social media post by Artsreach MeX Project showing the 2026/2027 Season at Kentucky Performing Arts.

Darryl Tucker Presents "Strolling with the Divine"
August 4-7, 6:30-8:30 PM
August 8-9, 4:00-8:00 PM
on sale now

"Body Politics Presented by Shasparay Irvin Hosted by Fairen Kia of Love Thy Belly"
September 4-5, 2026
The Kentucky Center - MeX Theater
on sale tba

Louisville Hivemind Artist Collective Presents "Very Berry Dead by Jose Perez IV"
April 5-11, 2027
The Kentucky Center - MeX Theater
on sale tba

Saw Peep Pan-Asian Ensemble Presents "The Adventures of Hanuman, the Monkey King"
May 17-23, 2027
The Kentucky Center - MeX Theater
on sale tba

Saw Peep Pan-Asian Ensemble @sawpeep.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Photos from Saw Peep Pan-Asian Ensemble's performance of "Hanuman Crossing the Ocean" at the Henry Clay Theatre at the inaugural Louisville Fringe Puppet Slam! Jul 24, 2026 Shadow puppets/music by Jon Silpayamanant @silpayamanant.bsky.social View the photos here: www.facebook.com/share/p/1BcQ...

Image showing a collage of photos. Upper left, silhouettes of Hanuman, a monkey-like figure facing a Naga/serpent. Upper right is an image of members of Saw Peep standing in front of the projection screen taking bows before the audience.

Bottom left is an image of members of Saw Peep sitting on the floor of the theater stage behind the screen surrounded percussion instruments like gongs and metallophones, and shadow puppets laying on the floor. Middle bottom image is Hanuman facing a giant Ogre: this is a view from the audience where the stage and full screen can be seen as well as some members of Saw Peep who are performing behind the screen. Right bottom image is artist director Jon Silpayamanant behind the screen looking at the camera holding the puppet of the naga/serpent. In the center of that image is a "+5" indicating there are more images to be seen. However, this is a screenshot of a facebook post where those images may be seen.

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Digital Arabic Maqām Archive Launch Presented by Dr. Khyam Allami خَيّام اللامي Digital launch happens next week; this presentation will be shared online. 📅 Tuesday, July 21, 2026 | 6PM - 8PM 📍 Engineering Lecture Hall (ELH), Masri Building 🌐 Open to the public www.instagram.com/p/Da2keB3qw_z/

Flyer for Digital Arabic Maqām Archive Launch
Join the Music Intelligence Lab for the launch of their exciting project, the Digital Arabic Maqām Archive.
The Digital Arabic Maqām Archive (DiArMaqAr) is an innovative open-source online platform and machine-readable corpus of Arabic maqām theory.
It is designed as a resource for students, musicians, composers, musicologists, educators, researchers, coders/developers (including AI agents/LLMs) and anyone interested in the rich music theory of the Arabic-speaking region.
Presented by Dr. Khyam Allami خَيّام اللامي
📅 Tuesday, July 21, 2026 | 6PM - 8PM
📍 Engineering Lecture Hall (ELH), Masri Building
🌐 Open to the public
Originally posted here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Da2keB3qw_z/

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Just added a little over a hundred more works to the Southeast Asian Composers Solo Keyboard pieces bringing the total number of works to about 750! doi.org/10.6084/m9.f...

"Solo Keyboard Repertoire - Southeast Asian Composers
Jon Silpayamanant
https://www.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.20405514
(19 July 2022; updated 03 December 2024)
For much of Southeast Asia, Western styled composition is a relatively new phenomenon. This masks the fact that for several centuries in many parts of the region, there has been a European presence and the use of forced musical labor for slave ensembles in colonies and trade ports.1
With eleven countries and several dozens of regions, nearly 700,000,0002 residents, and around 1200 spoken languages and dialects,3 Southeast Asia’s classical music history is similarly diverse."

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I've been reconstructing my performance history after a website crash/loss of data pre-pandemic. I've re-catalogued most of the events from 2000-2009 and seeing all the dance events it reminded me of this tweet I posted in reply to a long thread about how dance music works, a couple years ago. 1/2

Image of Jon Silpayamanant and text that says

"Jon Silpayamanant โจนาทาน ศิลปยามานันท์ | Mae Mai
@Silpayamanant

"Dance musician here who's literally played hundreds (if not thousands) of dance events in the US, & I can assuredly say even informally trained pros have just as wildly inaccurate ideas about how dance music works outside a very narrow ethnocentric range."

and

"Not having a working familiarity of Pop musics outside of the Anglo-American music industry means not understanding different ways dance & groove can function. Imagine teaching a theory of chords/progressions but only having major triads at your disposal."

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Currently reading Juliet Hess's "Popular Music Education: A Way Forward or a New Hegemony?" (Chapt 2 of "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Education: Perspectives and Practices") This last part! doi.org/10.5040/9781...

"Viewing this model through an anti-colonial framework highlights similar concerns to those raised about the Western classical model. If we conceptualize colonialism as something “imposed and dominating” (Dei 2006: 3), some popular music education simply privileges recordings or chord charts over classical scores for students to replicate, developing particular skills through the process. Like its Western classical counterpart, popular music pedagogy does not necessarily focus on creativity but rather on replication, with an emphasis on the learning process. The formal structure, replication focus, and limits to creativity are no less hegemonic than the classical paradigm (Georgii-Hemming and Westvall 2010; Moir 2017). Moreover, in sometimes privileging the informal musical processes of predominantly white, male, rock musicians, the replication approach parallels the classical model’s focus on reproducing the music of white, male composers, neglecting the contributions of women and people of color and reinscribing coloniality through clearly demarcating superior and inferior musical styles, practices, and musicians."

Saw Peep Pan-Asian Ensemble @sawpeep.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Saw Peep Pan-Asian Ensemble had a wonderful time performing the 'Louisville American 250: "Dawn's Early Light"! So many wonderful and powerful stories/music by Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, and a wide variety of other groups to shed light on different types of celebrations!

Dawn's Early Light
July 4th 2026
at Locust Grove

Approach July 4th with Intention

Honor America's 250™ with local indigenous elders; spiritual, religious, and cultural leaders; community breakfast; dancers, singers, drumming; and more...

Independence Bank
America 250 Louisville
Locust Grove

Dawn's Early Light
Full Schedule

5:00am - Sacred Fire Lit & Silent Reflection
6:30am - Sunrise & Silence Broken By Indigenous Drum
6:45am - Jingle Dress Dancers
7:00am - Libation Pouring with Ed White
7:10am - Celebration of the Ancestors Led by Harlina Trumbo & Akoben Rooted
7:30am - Sankofa Singers perform Black Gospel Spirituals
7:45am - Interfaith Blessing
8:00am - Singing Resistance Performs Communal Songs
8:30am - La Casita Center Land Acknowledment & Song
9:00am - Asia Institute Crane House
8:00am-10:00am - Community Breakfast

Locust Grove
561 Blankenbaker Lane

America 250 Celebration Louisville

Independence Bank

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

In 2006 I started writing previews of music events that got published at Indianapolismusic . net (RIP) and the first one I submitted was this write-up for the Yakshagana dance-drama "Gadayuddha" [1] 1/11

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I'll be on the radio (90.5 WUOL) at 11:30am playing Jeremy Beck's Quartet for flute, clarinet, cello, and piano. If you won't be able to listen, you can always hear our recording (1st 4 tracks) on Jeremy's new album "Chamber Music" which was released in May. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Jeremy Beck Chamber Music - YouTube

youtube.com

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Who remembers when Minari won the Golden Globe award for "Best Foreign Film" because it wasn't allowed to b nominated for a "Best Motion Picture" award? Yeah, more of the same. It's close to the 100 year anniversary of "Race records" as a marketing category for the early 20th c recording industry.

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท@silpayamanant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"The Grammys have a long history of creating separate categories for artists who are not White or American right around the moment those artists start threatening to win the big awards." "New Asian pop Grammy sparks backlash" asamnews.com/2026/06/23/g...

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New Asian pop Grammy sparks backlash – AsAmNews

Asian pop artists face a new Grammy category critics say echoes past attempts to sideline non‑white musicians and steer them away from major awards.

asamnews.com

Kitti 🎀 PINK CLOUDING ERA!!!@kittileecreates.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Just to be a petty bitch, here’s the statement from the Nepali aspec community on the “new” ace flag: www.reddit.com/r/asexuality... And here’s a co-signed one from multiple Spanish speaking countries: www.reddit.com/r/asexuality...

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The cello group "Cetallica" performing movement II, "Isaan," of my Two Thai Tunes for cello - and without sheet music! So Awesome! Thanks to Zachary Sweet, Lisa Caravan, Daniel Ketter, the Cello Teaching Repertoire Consortium, and Ithaca Suzuki Music Education! www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HZB...

"II. Isaan" from Jon Silpayamanant's "Two Thai Tunes" for cello

YouTube video by Jon Silpayamanant

youtube.com

Oren Ambarchi_Black Truffle @orenambarchi.bsky.social · 4mo ago

DEWA ALIT master of radical Balinese gamelan returns with BAUR BENTUR where the magical sound-world of Alit’s GAMELAN SALUKAT perform alongside virtuoso pianist SRI HANURAGA, a stunning next step in Alit’s radical combination of tradition & innovation. Preorder: dewaalit.bandcamp.com/album/baur-b...

Elizabeth Hopkinson @hidden-grove.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Who would be interested in seeing a picture book that explains being ace in child friendly terms? Please complete my interest survey: www.surveymonkey.com/r/R653GRY Here are some sample pictures for the book by Anna Hopkinson #ace #pride #books

Girl (white with brown pigtails). Thought bubbles of mum (white with brown hair) and dad (white and bald)

Girl and cat on bed with ace colours bedspread. Pictures of a blond elf in a green cloak and a nun with a cat

White female with dark hair in four different outfits

Marian Wilson Kimber @mwilsonkimber.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Hey musician hive mind! Anyone know any good literature (scholarly, medical) documenting regular injuries of musicians who perform too much? Or what policies standard union contracts include to prevent them? (Needed to convince a *bad word deleted* administrator.)

Rachel Bayer @rachelbayer.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Still buzzing from our @aroaceresearch.bsky.social talk! It was such a pleasure to reflect with @joejukes.bsky.social on why we love geography, and share some of our work with such an engaged audience. If you'd like to learn more about Asexual Geographies, check out our co-written article here:

New directions for asexual geographies - Joe Jukes, Rachel Bayer, 2025

Thinking geographically involves empirically contextualizing and critically contesting the situatedness of relational life. Thinking asexually, meanwhile, means...

journals.sagepub.com

Rachel Bayer@rachelbayer.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The Aromanticism & Asexuality Research Network's Online Talk Series starts today at 3pm Irish/UK time! Join us as we introduce the emerging sub-field of Asexual Geographies & talk about all things space, place, and asexuality 💜 🌍 ✨ Link here: www.aroaceresearch.com/events

Saw Peep Pan-Asian Ensemble @sawpeep.bsky.social · 4mo ago

We'll see you soon at the Louisville Philippine Independence Day Festival! Saturday, June 13, 2026 4-8pm Fourth Street Live! crane-house.org/event/philip... @silpayamanant.bsky.social

Poster for the upcoming Philippine Independence Day Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. The event is on Saturday June 13 on Fourth Street Live! from 4-8PM.

The flyer has photos of performers including their names: Nokee Bucayu, Hotel Bourre Bonne; Jon Penaflorida, Kaylee Plunkett, Crestview Company; Umi Naughty; Robby Gomez; Loresa Lanceta; Jirah Dicapua; Reymart Tasic; Lou Filipino Choral Ensemble; Cultura Philippines; Hui Kaululehua; and Saw Peep.

The bottom row of the poster includes a QR code and list of sponsors including their logos. Sponsors, in order from left to right are: Asia Institute - Crane House; Fourth Street Live!; Cultura Philippines; and the Louisville Downtown Partnership.

Diana Chan @thingsbydiana.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Happy Pride! 🌈 Our Ace Dragon is back - with a brand new design!!

Blackbird @blackbirb.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Reminder, as we approach Pride Month, that it is perfectly fine and okay to respond to any kind of attempt to use asexuality or asexual people as an excuse for puritan bullshit with a big ol' FUCK OFF. We're not useless little babies who need to be white knighted by you fucking freaks.

Anthony "ThePkmnYPerson" Staffenhagen @not-lana-loud.bsky.social · 5mo ago

There should be more #aromantic and #asexual representation in children's TV so kids don't think falling head over heels in love with someone is something you're 100% going to do someday. That's what I used to think because it's how TV made it seem.

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Love how Kawabata Maiko frames diversifying orchestra repertoire/practice in her "Racism and Diversity in Orchestral Practice" chapter of "East Asian Voices of Resistance Against Racism in Music." ethicspress.com/products/eas...

"Grace Wang (2015) coined the term “innate capacity” to describe the
belief that certain types of music originate from, and therefore belong
to, certain groups or places. According to this logic, only musicians of
Okinawan heritage and African American heritage could have
performed this programme authentically – which is obviously absurd.
If orchestral musicians could be retrained to absorb skills of what Jon
Silpayamanant (2023) has called “polymusicality and hybridization,”
such as improvisation or the traditional music of, say, China or
Azerbaijan, then orchestral practice itself could be diversified. The point
is that diversifying orchestral repertoire and diversifying orchestral
practice ought to go hand in hand. "

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Glad my DAW and Colonialism resource is helping frame issues in Music Technology. Here's a paragraph from a recent 2026 piece that cites (footnote 9) it, by Stefano Barone "The digital infrastructures of music scenes: Perspectives from the Global South" Open access here: doi.org/10.1177/2753...

"A final point to be made regards the criticisms, from musicians, scholars, and activists in the Global South, of DAWs’ “technocolonialism” (Castanheira, 2020). These criticisms broadly refer to the fact that the affordances of globally used DAWs are limited by the aesthetic canons of Northern “high” music (and by the neoliberal capitalist mode of production and circulation established by societies in the Global North).9 An example of this situation is the equal temperament of Northern scales used as standard in DAWs’ piano rolls (their composition interfaces) and tuners, which make these programs less suitable to produce music that responds to different melodic and harmonic principles and conventions. The idea of technocolonialism suggests that a predatory, colonizing history is embedded in technology that is supposed to be neutral (Allami, 2022; Castanheira, 2020). It relegates the use of non-Northern musics to embellishments, forms of “sonic tourism” that convey an aura of exoticism to global music genres born in the Global North, but makes it inconvenient to compose music coming from different traditions. Even considering the points made above when discussing Azonto's cosmopolitanism (Shipley, 2013), we should take these critiques seriously as they demonstrate how the power unbalance between the Global North and the Global South is, to some extent, inscribed in the very digital infrastructure that fashions contemporary globalization."

Text from endnote 9:
"9. Musician and independent researcher Jon Silpayamanant has been collating a bibliography on this topic in his website: https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/bibliography/daw-colonialism/ "

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 6mo ago

My Timeline of Music Notation gets a mention in Sean Williams' latest book "Music at the Threshold from the Sacred to the Dangerous" ( Oxford University Press | doi.org/10.1093/9780... ). Screenshot is from the online edition (print edition not available till May).

$Left column has a cover image of the book followed by a partial view of the contents. Right column: "Front Matter A Note on Musical Transcription Get access Arrow Sean Williams https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197761762.002.0006 Pages xxi–xxii Published: 16 March 2026 Extract The only musical notation that I provide in this book is Western staff notation. Is that a problem? Frankly, it is. I struggle with the fact that just a fraction of the world’s people can read music notation; that limits my transcriptions’ accessibility to just a few readers. Furthermore, most of the world’s musical traditions do not fit in the limited twelve tones afforded by staff notation. I have considered other systems, such as cipher notation, and discarded them. Please, please, if notation interests you, I urge you to explore Jon Silpayamanant’s fascinating WordPress site that features his Timeline of Music Notation ( https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/timeline-of-music.../ ). It decenters Western staff notation and points to a much longer, deeper history of how people have tracked music by visual means. If you cannot read Western staff notation—or even if you can!—the best practice is to simply look up the examples online and listen to them rather than struggling through the notation. I have kept the transcriptions in, but with misgivings. Subject: Ethnomusicology, Music, Sound Studies, Music Cultures Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online$

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 7mo ago

About 20 new entries to the Indonesian Cello/Strings bibliography--including 7 articles and monographs on keroncong cello pedagogy and analysis! The cello world is truly so big once we get out of strictly Western repertories and styles. silpayamanant.wordpress.com/cello/sea-vl...

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Another project I'm working on currently--a resource page for flute and cello works by Latin American composers! silpayamanant.wordpress.com/composition/...

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Here's a breakdown of the unique composers from Global Cello events (2023-2025). Interestingly, this masks diasporic & ethnicity info. For ex., the Central Eu composer is Austro-Persian & six N American composers are Armenian Am, Black Haitian-Am, Black Belizean-British, Filipino Am, & Indian Am.

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท@silpayamanant.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Since starting the Global Cello series a little over a couple years ago, I've performed 76 pieces on 15 different events & recitals! I've been breaking down the composers' demographics by region, gender, ethnicity & the works by date, form & style, and difficulty levels and thought I'd share this.

Jon Silpayamanant โจน ศิลปยามานันท @silpayamanant.bsky.social · 8mo ago