Echoes in Performance: Lived Experiences of a MUZIK Harmonie Artist

Abstract

MUZIK Harmonie is a performing group based in Leyte Normal University in the Philippines created to foreground world-class performances drawn from various genre of music arranged in concert format. Over the years of its existence, members embraced artistic pride in performing distinct repertoire from Broadway, classical, and popular genre while preserving harmonious relationship among members imbued with various musical expressions and sensibilities. This study encapsulated a singer’s lived experience as a performance artist of MUZIK Harmonie highlighting his perceptive meanings elucidated through singing alongside the interactive relationships developed as illuminations of camaraderie’s resonance with meaningful performance. Likewise, his narrative explorations articulated essences through his journeys elucidating deep intersubjective meanings of his lived experiences viewed through the lens of the self within cultural milieu. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of a MUZIK Harmonie performance artist. Investigation of experience included thick descriptions of the participant’s sense of worldview revolving around rehearsals, performances and various interactions both in and out of the stage. Knowledge derived in the study was emergent, not generalized, and the meanings resided in the participant as he viewed reality in multiple perspectives. Results of the study revealed that camaraderie among members of MUZIK Harmonie has a direct impact in effective singing; listening as the capacity to absorb sound reverberates quality performance through balanced understanding of musical utterances; vulnerability as a form of indulgence has a way of eliciting performance risk if not guarded by the performer; silence as power achieved through meditation deepens an artist’s sensitivity of life’s embracing power. Lastly, confluence of performer-audience elements creates a web of communicative meanings through non-verbal and non-determinate cues.