Bernard Ellorin

Since 2018, Bernard Ellorin PhD., is an adjunct faculty of music program at Miramar College in the Visual and Performing Arts Studies Department. He received his PhD in Music (Ethnomusicology) from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa in 2015. Ellorin’s academic and community work spans over 30 years of educating Filipino American and non-Filipino American communities on Filipino diasporic performing arts. From 2012-2013, Ellorin was a research fellow with the Fulbright Research and Study Abroad Program conducting a comparative study on the contemporary musics of the Sama-Bajau in Semporna District, Sabah Malaysia and Batangas City, Philippines.

As the music director for the Samahan Filipino American Performing Arts & Education Center, Ellorin performs traditional Philippine rondalla (stringed ensemble) and kulintang (gong chime percussion) ensemble music throughout southern California. Ellorin received the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) apprenticeship as a Master Artist in 2019 and 2021. Under both grant periods his apprentices mastered the art of indigenous gong music from the southern Philippines. Ellorin recently published chapters for the manuscript “Our Culture Resounds; Our Future Reveals: A Legacy of Filipino American Performing Arts in California” –a free resource available through the UCLA ethnomusicology archive. Ellorin also serves as a board member with the Center World Music helping curate both virtual and in-person concerts contributing to