The OPM Archive Foundation is now ON the search for music artifacts

08/27/2020 10:53:41 PM

The OPM Archive Foundation is set to collect music memorabilia and champion digital archiving in a time that needs preservation of cultural artifacts.

The announcement was made during a virtual presser held this past 26 August 2020, and the next-gen members of the group will be piloting the group for this initiative. The pool will be headed by its president Moy Ortiz, vice president Krina Cayabyab, treasurer Dinah Remolacio, and secretary Chevy Salvador, with more senior members – including founder and first president Celeste Legaspi, and members Girlie Rodis, Tats Rejante Manahan, and Lyca Benitez Brown – remain part of the group as board members and advisers.

The archive is a separate entity from Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM) in that it will serve as a foundation that collects and documents not just the actual original Filipino music, but also narratives, photographs, music sheets, and press releases.

Originally, “OPM” is a term referred to the inclusive period from the 70s to 80s when a rich influx of new and modern sounds, melodies, lyrics, singers, and musicians flooded the airwaves, and even the theater, with original dance musicals as “Rama Hari” and “Tales of the Manuvu”. Among the familiar and popular voices that emerged, aside from Celeste Legaspi’s were Basil Valdez, Hajji Alejandro, Sampaguita, Mike Hanopol, Florante, Freddie Aguilar, Leah Navarro, Didith Reyes, just to name a few.

The same archiving group, however, for the purposes of music research and study for future generations, shall extend its borders to the precedents of this era, the ’60s, and extend to the present, and hopefully can be sustained into the future, for the identification and recognition of music development. The accompanying narratives will seek to contextualize the music in its specific social relevance that defined each period, and perhaps identify continuity to the next period.

OPM Archive was initially planned before the lockdown, when the Filipinas Heritage Library (FHL), where the archive was to be housed, was ready to receive the hard copy donations. With the lockdown, however, FHL head Suzanne Yupangco and the archive group agreed to go digital. But this does not preclude the collecting of hard copies once the quarantine period is over. There is nothing like seeing the original “in the flesh”. While each hard copy donation will be digitized, the original copies will also be preserved through actual preventive conservation, knowing how digitization alone can be prone to obsolescence because of evolving digital formats.

Music plays a major role in peoples’ lives. It is something everyone cares about. And the archive hopes to ensure that the musical gems it documents and collects will live on from generation to generation, so children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren can appreciate, learn from, and perhaps someday, revise, improvise, follow or change approaches to music.

The archive is now open for digital collection and is open to the public for donations. Just visit opmarchive.com for more info.

Author: slickmaster | © 2020 The SlickMaster's Files