Music of Guam

The music of Guam encompasses the works of many Chamorro popular musicians, including KACY, Flora Baza Quan, Daniel De Leon Guerrero, singer-songwriter J. D. Crutch, who is on the local Napu Records and who released a best-selling local album with Guinaifen Manglo. The state song of Guam is "Guam Hymn" by Ramon Sablan, adopted in 1919. Flora Baza Quan is especially notable throughout the territory, and is known as the "Queen of Chamorro Music".

Modern music from Guam includes elements of American, Spanish, Filipino and Polynesian music. The Spanish and Mexicans contributed a type of song called serenatas to the culture of Guam. Some traditional Catholic songs in the Spanish language, including "Mil Albricias", "Pastores a Belen", "Santa Maria de la Merced" or "Nochebuena Noche Santa" and some traditional love songs including "A mi morena", "Ay que triste desventura", "Cancion de Antonio Acosta" or "Te quiero amar" are preserved.

Another notable modern Guam artist is Pia Mia. She mixes Pop, R&B, and Hip-hop in her original music. Pia Mia launched her career by uploading videos to Youtube, gaining over 17 million views and the attention of Chris Brown's manager Abou Thaim. In 2015, she dropped both the "F**k with U" single featuring G-Eazy, plus "Do It Again" with Chris Brown and Tyga. At the end of the decade, Mia made her acting debut in the romantic comedy film After, which also featured her song "Bitter Love."[1]

Music venues and institutions

Music institutions in Guam include the University of Guam's Fine Arts Department, Guam Symphony Society, Guam Choristers, Cantate Guam, and the Gregorian Institute of Guam. The Guam Symphony Society was founded in 1967, and hosts concerts such as the Symphony Seaside Concert and the Musikan Famagu'on for children. The two major local record labels are Napu Records and StelStar Records. In addition to the previously stated, there is the government sponsored Guam Territorial Band. The Guam territorial band hosts concerts yearly often free to the public, as well as representing Guam music on an international stage.

Chamorro music

Traditional Chamorro instruments include the belembaotuyan, a hollow gourd stringed instrument, and the nose flute. Kantan singing is also popular. It is a kind of work song, begun by one person teasing another in verse form, and then continuing through a group one individual in turn.

Chamorro chants and Kantan Chamorrita (Chamorrita singing), a kind of Chamorro poetry, are also important elements of Guamanian music. Kantan Chamorrita is a kind of improvised poetry with a call and response format that is documented back to 1602 and remains a vital part of Chamorro culture. In Kantan Chamorrita, individuals and groups trade witty remarks at each other as part of a debate. These songs are "ancient folk songs, arranged in quatrains of two octosyllabic couplets, which, according to some writers, are composed on a single melody, the variations depending on the individual style of performance. The distinctive features are spontaneous improvisation and a dialogue performance between two or more people, depending on the occasion and function."

Performers

The musical duo Gus and Doll (Agusto Quichocho and his wife Josephine Sablan Quichocho) were prominent performers of Chamorro music, active until the late 1980s.[2][3]

References
  1. "Pia Mia | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  2. "The return of Gus and Doll | Pacific Daily News". guampdn.com. Retrieved October 26, 2015.
  3. "Pacific News Center". Pacific News Center. Retrieved October 26, 2015.

Notes
  1. ^ Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities
  2. ^ Guam State Song
  3. ^ Guam Symphony Society
  4. ^ Bailey, Kim, cited at Guampedia and introduced as "an ethnomusicologist who studied the Chamorita in the 1980s in Guam and Rota"
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