Expect a gigabyte of poetry to flow out of Giga Mangubat Yanong’s saxophone during his homecoming performance here in August for a benefit concert that promises of explosive details centering on the marriage of humanitarian work and the Sugbuano's brand of musicality.
With original compositions entitled “Deep Blue Ocean”, “Please Stay With Me”, and “Blue Angel Sign Off” - samples uploaded on www.myspace.com/gigayanong where he defined music as the “only universal language one perceives” - Giga will come home to connect with his cultural roots and bring with him that Bisdak influence essential in the molding of his musicality in the nu jazz/electronica/pop genre and the nurturing of his creativity despite his quite long immersion in Western culture.
Deep Blue Ocean was composed and recorded in the summer of 2001 when he was just 14 years old. The song may be understood as his ode to the Pacific Ocean which separates him – in Chicago, Illinois, USA – from his “real home” here in the Philippines.
According to his father-mentor, Clemente “Dayong” Yanong, Jr., Please Stay with Me is a “theatric song” which means melodramatic. This is about school kids – good kids versus bad kids and good kids gone bad.
Meanwhile, Blue Angel Sign Off is an open book on Giga’s lovelife, about his first girlfriend. Her being the typical Caucasian - white, blue-eyed blonde – and the story of him breaking up with her. This may sound tragic; but pain has its power upon songwriters – like poignant memories to poets – which gives way to the birth of heart-melting compositions.
Giga, now 20 years old, was given the name that stands for “a billion” in computer jargon. Dayong explained through electronic mail that he finds Giga as the name most appropriate for his son who already manifested an inclination for music when he learned to play the guitar, keyboard and drums in early childhood. As a teener, Giga had performed via “Hataw Pinoy Chicago” and “Fil-Am Philippine Reports” aired over Chicago-based television networks.
“We share the same birth date, September 8. One in a billion chances ba. That’s why he was christened Giga,” Dayong pointed out.
Giga has some other original songs, but these have been saved for a bigger project after he finishes college.
As for his homecoming, Giga is set to play more of the Bisdak all-time favorite tunes to pay homage to great local composers who braved the odds, bushwhacked thickets, and blazed trails so Bisdak music and musicality would be known, recognized, and appreciated both here and abroad.
“Music runs in our blood. But our parents never encouraged us to become performing artists,” Dayong narrated.
“We are 16 in the family — 12 girls and four boys. All my elder brothers and eldest sister are doctors working here in the USA,” Dayong added.
“Every year, my brothers always carry out surgical and medical missions. Since Giga was a child, we always bring him with us to any fund-raising event or party. In any party, grand or small, there are always those opportunities to sing Visayan classics penned by Ben ‘Iyo Karpo’ Zubiri, Vicente ‘Inting’ Rubi, and Domingo ‘Minggoy’ Lopez like ‘Matud Nila’, ‘Carmela’ and ‘Usahay’. That’s why Giga is really in love with these songs plus he understands what these mean to us Bisdaks,” he said.
Dayong pointed out that Giga is a schooled musician. He started with the piano at six years old. “This went on for two years, pero mora’g wala kaayo siya mainteresado so we tried the saxophone. I'm glad that he has been in love with it since then.”
“He plays a lot in school — jazz, classical, etc. Soloist gyod ni siya kay he is loud, not scared to play. Very confident. Back in eighth grade, he performed the song ‘Misty’. One teacher, in tears, approached him and hugged him. That’s how we spotted his charisma through the sax,” Dayong added.
After grade school, Giga attended a school of the performing arts in Chicago where he studied courses in acting, audio theater, TV sitcom, stage management, including Broadway; musical composition, and the business management side of the music scene. After high school, he was accepted at the University of Illinois where he is now a junior student with a major in psychology.
He started working March of last year as a behavioral consultant at a rehabilitation center. After a week in his job, the administrator wanted him to be the director of Social Services.
“It may sound hinambogero, but we advised him to turn down the offer and finish school first, then he can do whatever he wants with his life after that. Matter of fact is we even discouraged him from performing earlier because we want him to focus in school. It's simply amazing that despite the distance from his “real home”, we find him - since he was 16 - expressing deep interest to record all-Bisdak songs. Ug sige lang ko’g saad to collaborate with him until I find him mature enough now to know about responsibility and how to handle such,” Dayong said.
He also promised Giga he would find somebody suitable who could arrange some butt-kicking music for his concert here on August 9, with the New Cebu Coliseum as tentative venue, in the person of Maestro Febes “Doy” Montaña of the Cebu Malay Society of Composers, Artists and Producers, Inc. – the group that struggled to stage “Handumanan” concert in SM City-Cebu during the Sinulog 2008 festivity and “Halad” in September of 2006 at the Mandaue City Sports Complex to exult a “one Cebu” stand versus Sugbuak bills then passed in Congress.
“Pag-10 years old niya, we went to a fund-raising party. He noticed this old white guy surrounded by Filipino doctors. The guy was Dr. Norman Dahl, the chief executive officer of the Norwegian-American Hospital and president of Century Lions International. Giga learned of Dr. Dahl’s humanitarian work. After that, Giga told me he is very much interested in such work. He started doing charitable works pag-11 years old niya.”
Further, it was learned that Giga had performed for a charitable cause through the Amihan Club of America that gives substantial amount to the Dangpanan Shelter of Cebu which provides safe, loving home for orphaned children.
However, Dayong clarified that the concert to be mounted in August is no fund-raising activity. “I don’t want the Bisdak people to come and watch him just because it is something for charity. I want them to come and listen to his performance because of his butt-kickin’ Bisdak talent. I'm pretty sure he’ll donate whatever amount the show raises to good cause,” he said.
Aside from that, the concert aims to uphold the time-held philosophy that music molds characters. As for Giga, loving music is as essential as embracing cultural roots which is in truth the note that's long been missing in his unfinished song.