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Of strings, magenta and sunflowers

Seeing through Cynthia Alexander

By PINK-JEAN FANGON MELEGRITO

Plum dusk I saw
Between the long ways
Falling shadows
Thioviolight
You hide your face in a Fryderk nocturne
Between I keep unraveling
Mauve dusk I saw light years of constant possibility
Sunday’s furious rose safe in the heavens

First note. First string of music flipped through my ears when I first heard Cynthia Alexander’s latest album, Comet’s tail. The track Thioviolight as if whispered something in my ear, heard a voice within me that my theater organization must use this as a transition song. The play I co-wrote was about a façade and invisibility of a carnival. The song was to depict how satiric carnival performers take a bow only to acknowledge reality outside their comfort zones showered with rapturous claps and phony admiration. Then later on I would find out it was the exact significance Cynthia thought the song was for.

Having a conversation with Cynthia Hagart-Alexander released the triteness of how I explain things around me. She is not only a passionate musician but a very subterranean humble soul. Amidst all chaos that surrounds our derisory lives, she finds it almost too easy to become centered and in harmony with the craft she discovered her purpose in. One who knows her music would agree. Those who would eventually unravel her would concur the same.

More than a poignant hello

To majority, Joey Ayala rings a bell amidst talks of indigenous music; ethnic music folk, they would often say. It was in Probe Productions then-show ‘5&up’ when a young reporter featured another gem of a singer-songwriter-arranger-musician-producer rolled into one humble being of Cynthia Alexander. That’s the first time I’ve encountered her. Turns out she is Joey’s equally (if not much better) skillful sister. I was then in 1st year high school when I watched it. Since then I couldn’t help but ask around her.

Full-circle moment. Last November 12 made it happen. My friend from Sofia, a Waldorf arts-based children school here in Maryknoll Sanctuary, told me they are having a mini concert featuring Cynthia. My partner and I and some friends were there at 8:30pm; the concert was at 10pm. (I can’t help letting out the fan side of me.) Cynthia arrived. The strings seem to follow each strand of command she strikes upon them. Audience in awe, confused which to pay attention to- her hands, her voice, or her breathtaking altogetherness. Mesmerizing. Tranced.

Afterward, I clumsily asked her if we can do an interview. Initially, I was in doubt if she would agree; she looked exhausted after earlier that day, unveiling her (and daughter Tala’s) art exhibit in Bliss Café and performing non-stop a roster of more than ten songs at the Ayuyang bar. “Can we do it tomorrow? Because I have to attend to them. (gesturing to other admirers waiting in line for her autograph),” she told me. Frustrated to begin with, I agreed. After almost a decade waiting for this, I thought why not wait for a few more hours.

Lunchtime the next day. Finally, I met her in person.

Starting our conversation churned butterflies and psychedelic thoughts in my stomach (and in my head). It’s hard for me to admit that I was fascinated just by her mere presence. “Hi, Pink,” she greeted me. Those two words made it comfortable, making me realize she was after all self-effacing and convivial.

Privy jolt and jazz

Poet painter Tita Lacambra-Ayala and fictionist painter Jose V. Ayala, Jr. bore a woman of manifold art gifts. A multi-instrumentalist, multi-tasking independent musician, vegetarian and self-taught painter partly sums up her persona. Her music is greatly spontaneous, almost innate, touching diverse themes from “a manong shouting ‘Balot!’ or ‘Taho!” to the complex dream of the purplish-magenta womb bearing a child. It imbibes her perceptiveness and being lighthearted. Somehow ironically melancholic, her songs are interpreted variedly- some hear it as a love sonata, some as a source of strength, some fall amidst its depth.

People always try to classify music. Debates about her creations come across the genres of folk, world, new age, rock alternative, television or even ad music.’ To settle the ‘dispute’, I asked her how she categorizes hers, “For me if I classify my work, it’s like putting it in a box. I can’t stereotype it. It’s wide. If you listen to the albums I’ve made, it’s safe to say that it’s a synthesis. My work is like a synthesis of sound… and love… classical music… Eastern classical music. I hear all those strings and everything.”

Compassion is always brought out in every single note she plays. When I looked at the people watching her, they were as if in reverie. She tells me that even she didn’t know why. Sometimes, eight songs would go by without her realizing that. “I was even mesmerized myself. I didn’t realize that was the effect I also had on myself. What happens kasi when I go on stage, it’s me pero parang it’s not me, you know? And I’m only serving a greater cause realizing what it is. And of course in the end, I realize it’s service,” she humbly puts it.

Being a vegetarian since November 5, twenty-one years ago gets her more centered. She says that her music is closely related to what she eats. “Clarity in the thinking. I cannot stand putting something in my mouth that had to give its life just because we like the taste of it. I can’t bear it. I think it’s my overwhelming compassion for the steak (she smiles). It’s not even a necessity. If I could just live with breathing, I would,” she shares. Since I am a starting vegetarian, she even gave me advice to what-and-what-not to eat. It’s just a matter of shifting, a matter of choice that would help me getting focused, she told me.

However, her health actually declined this year because she stopped taking in dairy. From being a lacto-vegetarian, she hopes to turn vegan. She is now in transition in what to include in her diet so as to strengthen her concentration. Her doctor advised her to live in higher places since her asthma attacks worsen in hot areas. The doctor suggested why not try living in Tagaytay, but she does not know anyone there. Her mother is from Antamok in Itogon, Benguet, one of the reasons she is thinking that it is viable living here in Baguio.

A notch deeper into her music

She was a bassist for the former rock band of Hayp, and won the Best Bass Player Award at the World Band Explosion in Tokyo, Japan (October 1989). Included in her bass years were with Apo Hiking Society, Mike Hanopol and Jun Lopito. Afterward, she decided to join her brother’s group, Joey Ayala at ang Bagong Lumad.

Bagong Lumad did a lot of traveling around the world. Later on, she would meet Scottish environmentalist Boyd John Hagart-Alexander, and decide to settle down here in the country. When their daughter Tala was born, Cynthia was inspired to produce her own album.

Feeling an ‘empowered me’, she created her first album, Insomnia and other lullabyes. It was Cynthia’s first attempt to compile her works since 1992, and release an independent record. Malaya, Walk down the road, Fly and Owner of the Sky were a few of the first songs she wrote.

It took her writing off all the ideas in her head. “It was actually a joyful album. I was celebrating Tala’s birth. When I wrote it, I was pregnant with her. She is ‘abnormally compassionate’, she is very sensitive. Actually a lot of Waldorf parents, they know her. People talk to her pag kunwari may problema. Parang she’s an old person,” she lovingly looks at 9-year old Tala, sitting beside her.

Insomnia’s 6th track “Hello Baby” goes, Hiya, hello baby/ with the spotlight in your eye/ the harsh stark reality/ you are with me now/ you will always be/ until you walk away/ hiya hello hello baby.

At first, she tried to let Joey sing her songs. But she ended up doing it herself. Fruits of her labor came in the 1998 Katha Music Awards, Insomnia won the Best Alternative Music Album Award, together with her award as the Best New Artist.

Years later, she produced another album Rippingyarns. It took its shape as Cynthia puts her ‘realizations and compassions of being human’. In 2001 Katha Music Awards, it claimed awards of the Album of the Year, Best Alternative Music Album, and Best Album Design. She was then the Producer of the Year Awardee. The album’s song Intertywne also won 5 awards, one of which was the Song of the Year Award. Another song Motorbykle, also won the Song of the Year Award as given in the 2001 NU Rock Awards.

Comet’s tail, her third album had just been released. “I was then experiencing death, my father’s death. Thioviolight is the first song I wrote after my father died. I had just begun to paint again. It’s a transition song for me,” she tells me.

With the album in hand, as a comeback, she was named MTV’s Lokal Artist of the Month last May 2005.

After the gig at Ayuyang bar, she is to record another album. Joey asked her to write music for the Bureau of Fisheries album. Mike Villegas, Bayang Barrios, Malou Matute also wrote pieces for it. “Joey wants it the fastest album recorded in the world. Si Joey talaga,” she jokes around as her brother wants it released by December 8.

Nearing farewell to sunflowers and pine trees

I asked her if she has any odd habits while writing or before performing. Then she laughs a little and says that she doesn’t talk before performing. “I need to collect energy,” she believes all her energy would surge up in time of the performance. “When i write, I don’t stop and let a song go until it breaks down and carry on its own. I’m just a name, I’m just a body. I’m only delivering. It’s sort of a mediumship when I’m writing,” she explained.

“Most of my music are written in Heroes’ Hill (somewhere in Quezon City). The river which runs in front of the house called Kundiman. There are bamboos. I can hear the wind. It’s tahimik. My mom came to visit this year for the first time, and said it’s even quieter than Davao,” she added.

In another note, I asked about what she could best give Tala, also a shy budding visual artist. She promptly says that values are most important, “In the end she has to make decisions on her own.”

Humbly and with all modesty, she says “…In the end, ‘Who am I’? I’m only using the body. We are only serving our purpose. So mainly, it’s not an issue if I’m back doing bakup vocals for Joey.”

Moreover, not only is she very much concerned about her craft, but she also takes part in the peoples movement for a more democratic and just life. She is a member of Dakila, an anti-EVAT organization based in Manila, with co-members such as Lourd De Veyra (Radioactive Sago Project), Tado, among others.

Transcendence. Slipping away from a world apart from what we merely see, hear, feel and touch. This is what Cynthia left me looking through the world anew of strings, magenta and sunflowers. Deep indeed. #

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