Inaugurated in 1992, Samba-Likhaan Artists' Community has been home to artists, theologians, and scholars from the different Asian countries, as well as non-Asians whose field of interest and involvement lie in Asia. Located in Cathedral Heights, in the heart of Quezon City, Philippines, Samba-Likhaan is sprawled over one-and-a-half hectares of land. An "Oasis in the City" is the common description of guests and visitors.

An open terraced performance circle is surrounded by typical Filipino country cottages standing on stilts and connected by wooden bridges. Bamboo and other tropical trees are planted everywhere and have grown lush with the years. In this oasis live artists who pursue their creative work as expressions of their faith, dedicating their arts to the glory of God, the Creator.

Samba-Likhaan is committed to artistic activities that enhance the participating consciousness of members of communities and deals with communal culture and multifunction art-rituals. Its founder and president, Francisco F. Feliciano, is a composer and educator recognized all over the world for his continuing effort to make the arts relevants to the people's worship life.

Samba-Likhaan Programs seek to address the need to place art, music, dance, or other cultural activities in the service of the community where it is found, not merely for aesthetics but as catalyst for mobilizing community energy towards enhancement of life and spirituality.

Samba-Likhaan pursues activities that focus on the artists' work with specific communities, expansion of the network of artists, church workers and leaders, and the continuing development of art programs that can be adopted as tools in highlighting socio-cultural concerns of the communities and churches.

Samba-Likhaan is coined from the roots of two words in Filipino, the Philippine national language. Samba means worship while likha means creation. Joining these creates a new word that, with the prefix -an, endows it with not just one but, like the best works of art, multiple meanings. Samba-Likhaan is both the place and the process of creation, where artists render their homage to God through their work.

Samba-Likhaan invites artists, theologians, and students to take part in its programs--to live and work together, experimenting, creating, performing, sharing ideas in an environment that brings out the creative spirit in all of us.

FRANCISCO F. FELICIANO is regarded as one of Asia's leading contemporary composers and a respected name in orchestra conducting. He is undoubtedly one of the Philippines' most important composers, having created a large body of work that includes operas (La Loba Negra, Ashen Wings, Sikhay sa Kabila ng Paalam, Jose Abad Santos), ballet (Yerma), large work for orchestra and chorus (Transfiguration, Missa Mysterium), and chamber pieces (Voices and Images, Perpetuum Immobile, Kochi, Salimbayan). His intricately woven choral works (Pamugun, Pokpok Alimpako) have earned prizes for leading Philippine choirs in international choral competitions and have become a favorite among choirs around the world. Earthsongs has published his Pokpok Alimpako, while the Santa Barbara Publishing House has Pamugun in its catalogue of choral music. Orchestras and chamber ensembles in New York, Chicago, Auckland, Moscow, Beijing, Taipei, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, and Manila have performed works of Feliciano.

Feliciano's music education from the University of the Philippines led him to advanced degrees (MMA and DMA in Composition) from the Yale University School of Music and diplomas from the Berlin schools Hochschule der Kunste and the Berliner Kirchenmusikschule in Composition and Church Music, respectively. International conductors Arthur Weisberg and Martin Behrmann were his conducting mentors, while he studied composition with Isang Yun, Jacob Druckman, Heinz Werner Zimmermann, and Krystof Penderecki.

As one of Asia's leading figures in church music, Feliciano has composed hundreds of liturgical pieces, mass settings, hymns, and other songs for worship, He continues to write new works as he supervises the publication of a new collection of Asian songs containing works of Asian composers at the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (AILM), a school for church music he founded in 1980. Feliciano's works are published worldwide in hymnals and worship books of churches, a recognition of the universality of his works. He is an active clinician, having conducted workshops on creative music writing in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hongkong, Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany.

Feliciano has conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Moscow State Symphony, the Taipe City Symphony Orchestra, Nihon Shinsei Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, as well as orchestras in Singapore and Malaysia. For a time he was the resident conductor of the Philippine Philhamornic Orchestra.

Dr. Feliciano is President of the Samba-Likhaan: The Asian School of Music, Worship and the Arts, an organization devoted to the promotion of music and arts and putting these in the context of worship. He is currently visiting professor at the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul, Korea.

Right in the heart of the city is an oasis. An open-terraced performance circle surrounded by typical Filipino country cottages of wood, capiz windows and tiled roof bamboo and other tropical trees that have grown lush through the years.

Over the years, hundreds of guests have stayed in the cottages designed by the late National Artist Leandro V. Locsin. Tucked away in the campus of the Episcopal Church Center in Quezon City, there is rest and quiet in Sambalikhaan. Yet the convenience of the city, with its cafes and bookstores, shops and supermarkets, is just a few hundred meters away.

 

And where exactly are we in Quezon City? Download the map here.

Visit for an ocular Sambalikhaan Artists' Community in our Gallery.

The Artists-in-Residence Program evolved into a separate program of Samba-Likhaan after the latter's formal establishment. The program has invited more than 100 individual artists and various performing groups in the course of ten years and has seen the blossoming of creative work at AILM with the interaction that took place between artists and students, artists and congregations, and artists among themselves. The creation of the artists' community has facilitated this free flow of creative ideas, its translation into performances and works of art, and its dissemination in many congregations through the AILM.

The current artist-in-residence is Filipino painter,

EMMANUEL GARIBAY.

What Critics say about his works:

" His works include strong expressions of Filipino spirituality ... Garibay rejects colonial
religious models which he feels create an identity crisis that prevents his people from assessing their situation from their own perspective. His works reflect a belief that art can be an effective medium for awakening consciousness... a genuine cultural revolution through art can help people pull themselves out of their despondency and feeling of powerlessness."
- Amanda Watson, South China Morning Post

"The rawness of Garibay's images is immediately arresting to the eye... colors and hues are rich; the surface textures seem to cry out, even bleed his message (not one that is entirely direct or facile). One has to think carefully on his works. His overlayings of images, a common device, for example, suggest to the viewer that behind each surface image is much, much more to be revealed."
- Ian Findlay-Brown, Editor, Asian Art News

"Garibay's multi-leveled symbolism which traverses historical periods and contexts makes for an art that continually proffers new insight. His paintings strip the barnacles of conventional religiosity, explode long-held conservative myths, and come up with fresh ways of engagement with religious issues through the power of art."
- Alice G. Guillermo, Asian Art News

"Beyond the 'its good to kill and its good to be rich' brands of culture and cultural practices and aspirations built from materials beyond the immediate purview of the Filipino bourgeois mainstream nationalism... It is with such materials, both those aspects of the people's lives seeking liberation, and those aspects of social life which delay social justice, that Garibay renders his images."
- Jonathan Beller, author of Kristology and Radical Communion: Works of Emmanuel Garibay

 

View more of Mani Garibay's paintings by visiting our Gallery or his site.

 

It is with great pride and joy that we announce the holding of the 8th Annual Workshop for Choral Conductors, to be held at the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music on April 7 to 11, 2008.

For this year, we are proud to have with us Prof. Martin Behrmann, who, in our opinion, is one of the best choral pedagogues in the world today. Prof. Behrmann has been a frequent Manila visitor, holding workshops in choral conducting at AILM. From his school in Berlin, several Filipinos have studied under his direct tutelage, including Dr. Francisco Feliciano, Eudenice Palaruan, and myself. He has been absent from our local scene for far too long, and we are only too glad to bring him back.

We are also offering for the first time, several workshops and seminars to choose from, all occurring simultaneously. Prof. Behrmann will lead the morning classes, while the afternoon sessions will be handled by the conducting teachers of AILM, including several famous choral personalities. You will have the choice to attend choral clinics, conducting sessions, and open forum sessions on a variety of topics that are important in your work as a choral conductor.

The nightly concerts are one of the things that make the AILM annual workshop unique, and this year is no exception, with a lineup of concerts by the country’s – and the world’s – best choirs. These concerts are of course open to the public, and will be held at the nearby St. Andrew’s Chapel.

Download the Application Form (Word format can also be downloaded here) and mail it to workshops@sambalikhaan.org or fax it at (02) 722-1490. For more information, contact the AILM office at (02) 722-5554 or (02) 722-8577 and look for Luz or Debbie.

Sambalikhaan Board of Trustees

Rev. Dr. Emerito P. Nacpil, Chairman of the Board
The Very Rev. Tomas S. Madella
Father Anscar Chupungco
Dr. Sientje Merentek-Abram
The Most Rev. Ignacio Soliba
The Most Rev. Godofredo J. David
Dr. Rafael B. Rodriguez

Sambalikhaan Officers

Dr. Francisco F. Feliciano
President

Lillibeth Nacion
Executive Director

Rexie Barrera
Administrative and Finance Officer

Luz Gatbonton
Administrative Assistant

Michael Balili
Program Associate

Lucas Biteng
Head of General Services

Jojo Nacion
Loreta Lalaguna
General Services