Ramon Pagayon Santos, composer, conductor and musicologist, is currently the country’s foremost

exponent of contemporary Filipino music. A prime figure in the second generation of Filipino
composers in the modern idiom, Santos has contributed greatly to the quest for new directions in
music, taking as basis non-Western traditions in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

He graduated in 1965 from the UP College of Music with a Teacher’s Diploma and a Bachelor of
Music degree in both Composition and Conducting. Higher studies in the United States under a
Fulbright Scholarship at Indiana University (for a Master’s degree, 1968) and at the State University
of New York at Buffalo (for a Doctorate, 1972) exposed him to the world of contemporary and avant-
garde musical idioms: the rigorous processes of serialism, electronic and contemporary music,

indeterminacy, and new vocal and improvisational techniques. He received further training in New
Music in Darmstadt, Germany and in Utrecht, the Netherlands. His initial interest in Mahler and
Debussy while still a student at UP waned as his compositional style shifted to Neo Classicism and
finally to a distinct merging of the varied influences that he had assimilated abroad.

His return to the Philippines marked a new path in his style. After immersing himself in indigenous
Philippine and Asian (Javanese music and dance, Chinese nan kuan music), he became more
interested in open-ended structures of time and space, function as a compositional concept,
environmental works, non-conventional instruments, the dialectics of control and non-control, and
the incorporation of natural forces in the execution of sound-creating tasks. All these would lead to
the forging of a new alternative musical language founded on a profound understanding and a
thriving and sensitive awareness of Asian music aesthetics and culture.

Simultaneous with this was a reverting back to more orthodox performance modes: chamber works
and multimedia works for dance and theatre. Panaghoy (1984), for reader, voices, gongs and bass
drum, on the poetry of Benigno Aquino, Jr. was a powerful musical discourse on the fallen leader’s
assassAn active musicologist, Santos’ interest in traditional music cultures was heretofore realized
in 1976 by embarking on fieldwork to collect and document music from folk religious groups in
Quezon. He has also done research and fieldwork among the Ibaloi of Northern Luzon. His
ethnomusicological orientation has but richly enhanced his compositional outlook. Embedded in the
works of this period are the people-specific concepts central to the ethnomusicological discipline,
the translation of indigenous musical systems into modern musical discourse, and the marriage of
Western and non-Western sound.

An intense and avid pedagogue, Santos, as Chair of the Department of Compositiion and Theory
(and formerly, as Dean) of the College of Music, UP, has remained instrumental in espousing a
modern Philippine music rooted in old Asian practices and life concepts. With generation upon
generation of students and teachers that have come under his wing, he continues to shape a legacy
of modernity anchored on the values of traditional Asian music.ination in 1983, which subsequently
brought on the victorious People Power uprising in 1986.
Ramon Pagayon Santos was born on February 25, 1941. He received his Bachelor of Music Composition
and Conducting from University of the Philippines Conservatory of Music in 1965, his Master of Music
with distinction from Indiana University in 1969, and his Doctor of Philosophy from State University of
New York at Buffalo in 1972. He was also a student in summer courses in New Music at Darmstadt in
1974 and in Special Seminars in Ethnomusicology at the University of Illinois in 1989. He has studied
composition with Hilarion Rubio, Lucio San Pedro, Thomas Beversdorf, Roque Cordero, Ramon Fuller,
and William Koethe. He has taken contemporary music courses with Istvan Anhalt and George Perle
and has studied Ethnomusicology with Bruno Nettl. He has also studied Javanese music and dance with
Sundari Wisnusubroto and Nan Kuan with Lao Hong Kio.

Santos has held the position of Commissioner of the Sub-committee on the Arts of the National
Commission for Culture and the Arts since 1998, University Professor since 1995, Chairman and
Secretary General of the Music Competitions for Young Artists Foundation from 1989 to 1997. He also
currently holds the positions of Secretary of the League of Filipino Composers, Member of the ISCM
Advisory Panel on the World’s Musical Cultures, Lecturer for the Asian Instituts for Liturgy and Music,
Member of the Humanities Division of the National Research Council of the Philippines. His past
positions include Artistic Director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Chairman of the Asian
Composers League (1994-1997), Dean of UP College of Music (1978-1988), and President of the
National Music Council of the Philippines (1984-1993).

Among awards he has received are Composer-in-Residence of Bellagio Study Center/Rockefellar

Foundation (1997); Artist-in-Residence, Civitella Ranieri Center (1998); Acheivement Award in the
Humanities from National Research Council of the Philippines (1994); Fellowships from the Asian
Cultural Council and The Ford Foundation (1998-1989); and Chevalier de l’Ordre des Artes et Lettres,
French Government.

- was born in Pasig on February 25,

1941

- he completed his Bachelor of Music degree at the College of Music, University of the Philippines

- he finished his Master of Music degree at Indiana University, USA

- Santos’ compositional style features chromaticism, music seria, and electronic components,combined
with indigenous Philippine music elements. His works includeDing Ding Nga Diyawa, Nabasag na
Banga at Iba’t iba pang Pinag-ugpong-ugpong na Pananalita sa Wikang Pilipino para sa Labing Anim
na Tinig, and L’BAD. He had done extensive research on the gamelan music of Java as well as the
traditional music of the Ibaloi, Maranao, Mansaka, Bontoc, Yakan, and Boholano tribes in the
Philippines

- Santos held the position of Dean of the UP College of Music from 1978 to 1988

- he is the head of the UP Center of Ethnomusicology and was appointed Professor Emeritus of the
same institution. He was conferred the title of National Artist for Music in 2014
LUCRECIA KASILAG