NATIONAL ARTIST IN MUSIC INDUSTRY
Antonio Buenaventura (1988)
(May 4,1904-January 25,1996)
*In 1935, Buenaventura joined Francisca Reyes-Aquino to conduct research on folksongs and dances
that led to its popularization.
*Buenaventura composed songs, compositions, for solo instruments as well as symphonic and
orchestral works based on the folksongs of various Philippine ethnic groups.
*He was also a conductor and restored the Philippine Army Band to its former prestige as one of the
finest military bands in the world making it “the only band that can sound like a symphony orchestra”.
*Played the clarinet proficiently has written several marches such as the “Triumphal March,” “Echoes of
the Past,” “History Fantasy,” Second Symphony in E-flat, “Echoes from the Philippines,” “Ode to
Freedom.”
*His orchestral music compositions include Concert Overture, Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, Philippines
Triumphant, Mindanao Sketches, Symphony in C Major, among others.
Levi Celerio
(April 30, 1910 – April 2, 2002)
*was a Filipino composer and lyricist who is credited to writing not less than 4,000 songs. Celerio was
recognized as a National Artist of the Philippines for Music and Literature in 1997.
*He is also known for using the leaf as a musical instrument which led to being recognized as the "only
man who could play music using a leaf" by the Guinness Book of Records. This led to him making guest
appearance in television shows recorded outside the Philippines.
*Aside from being a musician, Celerio is also poet. He was also a film actor who appeared in various
Philippine films of the 1950s and 1960s.
*Levi Celerio was a member of the Manila Symphony Orchestra but his stint with the musical troupe
ended when he fell off a tree and broke his wrist. He temporarily worked as a comic illustrator and later
decided to shift to songwriting.
*Levi Celerio is credited for writing more than 4,000 songs, many of which are dedicated to his wife and
children. He wrote Filipino folk, Christmas, and love songs and some of his songs were used in feature
films.
*Among Original Pilipino Music (OPM) songs he composed are "Ikaw", "Kahit Konting Pagtingin", "Saan
Ka Man Naroroon?". He wrote the lyrics of the famous Filipino lullabye Sa Ugoy ng Duyan . He also
composed folk songs including "Ako ay May Singsing", "Ang Pipit", "Dungawin Mo Hirang", "Itik-Itik",
"Pitong Gatang", and "Waray-Waray" "Sa Ugoy ng Duyan", in particular was a collaboration with
Lucio San Pedro, a fellow National Artist. The song is a carrier song in Aiza Seguerra's gold album,
Pinakamamahal.
*"Ang Pasko ay Sumapit", officially title "Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taon" is an example of
a well known Christmas song composition by Celerio.
*The University of the Philippines conferred him an honorary doctorate degree in Humanities in 1991.
The Film Academy of the Philippines gave Celerio the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. He is also
the recipient of the CCP Gawad Para Sa Sining in 1991, and the Gawad Urian Award in 1993.
ERNANI JOSON CUENCO
(May 10, 1936 – June 11, 1988)
*was a Filipino composer, film scorer, musical director and music teacher and Philippine National Artist
for Music.
*He wrote an outstanding and memorable body of works that resonate with the Filipino sense of
musicality and which embody an ingenious voice that raises the aesthetic dimensions of contemporary
Filipino music.
*Cuenco played with the Filipino Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Manila Symphony Orchestra from
1960 to 1968, and the Manila Chamber Soloists from 1966 to 1970. He completed a music degree in
piano and cello from the University of Santo Tomas where he also taught for decades until his death in
1988.
*He was proclaimed National Artist for Music in 1999; He was an award-winning film scorer in the early
1960s, working in collaboration with National Artist for Music Levi Celerio. He was also a teacher and a
seasoned orchestra player.
*His songwriting credits include "Nahan, Kahit na Magtiis," and "Diligin Mo ng Hamog ang Uhaw na
Lupa," "Pilipinas," "Inang Bayan," "Isang Dalangin," "Kalesa," "Bato sa Buhangin" and "Gaano Ko Ikaw
Kamahal." The latter song shows how Cuenco enriched the Filipino love ballad by adding the elements of
kundiman to it.
Felipe Padilla De Leon
(May 1, 1912 – December 5, 1992)
*was a Filipino classical music composer, conductor, and scholar. He received the Republic Cultural
Heritage Award, Rizal Pro-Patria Award, Presidential Award of Merit and Patnubay ng Kalinangan Award,
among others. He was named Composer of the Year in 1949, Musician of the Year in Manila in 1958, and
a National Artist of the Philippines in 1997.
*Before becoming a musician he took various odd jobs to support his family, such as a shoe polisher,
carabao herder, carriage driver, and vendor of various items. In 1927, he took up Fine Arts at the
University of the Philippines, but he had to abandon his studies to make a living.
* He played the trombone in cabarets and circuses, and later worked as an assistant conductor of the
Nueva Ecija High School Orchestra, where he started composing music. To improve his composing skills
he again enrolled to the University of the Philippines, and graduated in 1939 with a diploma of music
teacher and conductor.
JOSE MACEDA
(January 17, 1917 – May 5, 2004)
* was a great Filipino composer and ethnomusicologist
*Jose Maceda collected audio records materials of traditional music amongst various populations in
Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, part of these audio archives are deposited in the CNRS – Musée de
l’Homme audio archives in France (a digitized version is available online). His entire musical collections
were inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2007, as submitted by the U.P. Center
for Ethnomusicology and nominated by the Philippine government.
*And studied piano, composition and musical analysis at École Normale de Musique de Paris in France.
After returning to the Philippines, he became a professional pianist, and later studied musicology at
Columbia University, and anthropology at Northwestern University.
FRANCISCO FELICIANO
(19 February 1941 – 19 September 2014)
*was a Filipino composer and conductor. He was a National Artist of the Philippines for Music.
*Works and arrangements include for example:
Buksan mo ang aming mga labi (published 1982)
Mass of Saint Andrew (published 1981)
Pamugun (choral, with soprano solo. published 2002)
Pokpok alimpako (chorus. published 2002)
Three Visayan folksongs: for high voice (published 1998)
*In 2014, Feliciano was named one of 13 National Artists of the Philippines, together with twelve other
persons.
ANTONIO MOLINA
(26 December 1894 – 29 January 1980)
*was a Filipino composer, conductor and music administrator. He was named a National Artist of the
Philippines for his services to music. He was also known as the Claude Debussy of the Philippines due to
his use of impressionism in music.
*Molina made his first composition in 1912 titled Matinal, which is preserved in an unpublished volume
called Miniatures, was appointed to teach harmony, composition, music history, and violin cello at the
UP Conservatory of Music, pursuing a career in music education until being appointed dean of the
Centro Escolar Conservatory of Music. He founded the CEU String Quartet which was professionally
organized and financed by its music school. As a composer Molina is credited with over 500
compositions.
LUCIO SAN PEDRO
(February 11, 1913 – March 31, 2002)
*was a Filipino composer and teacher who was proclaimed National Artist of the Philippines for Music in
1991
*By then, he had already composed songs, hymns and two complete masses for voices and orchestra.
After studying with several prominent musicians in the Philippines, he took advanced composition
training with Bernard Wagenaar of the Netherlands. He also studied harmony and orchestration under
Vittorio Giannini and took classes at Juilliard in 1947.
*On May 9, 1991, President Corazon C. Aquino proclaimed San Pedro a National Artist of the Philippines
for Music.
LUCRECIA KASILAG
(31 August 1918 – 16 August 2008)
*was a Filipino composer and pianist
*she took up composition, and on 1 December 1945, she performed her own compositions in a concert
at Philippine Women's University.
*She was also a former president of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, head of the Asian Composers
League, Chairperson of the Philippine Society for Music Education, and was one of the pioneers of the
Bayanihan Dance Company. She is credited for having written more than 200 musical compositions,
ranging from folksongs to opera to orchestral works, and was composing up to the year before she died,
at age 90.
*She is particularly known for incorporating indigenous Filipino instruments into orchestral productions.
*National Artist in the Philippines, 1989.
RAMON SANTOS
(born 25 February 1941)
*is a Filipino composer, musicologist and ethnomusicologist. He is a National Artist of the Philippines for
music, and University Professor Emeritus of the composition and theory department the College of
Music of the University of the Philippines Diliman.
*Santos was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1987. In 2014 he was named one of six
National Artists of the Philippines, together with five other persons.
ANDREA VENERACION
(July 11, 1928 – July 9, 2013)
*was a Filipina choral conductor and a recipient of the 1999 National Artist for Music award.
* She was a lyric soprano soloist in various Oratorio works and in the Opera Stage. She was also a very
accomplished pianist and accompanist and was the accompanist of National Artist for Music, Jovita
Fuentes for a number of years. Apart from being an extraordinary musician, she was also an exceptional
athlete as a competitive swimmer. She was part of the Philippine swimming team who first competed
internationally in Hong Kong.
*1999 – National Artist of the Philippines for Music – currently the only awardee for choral music.
JOVITA FUENTES
(February 15, 1895 – August 7, 1978)
*Long before Lea Salonga’s break into Broadway, there was already Jovita Fuentes‘ portrayal of Cio-cio
san in Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly at Italy’s Teatro Municipale di Piacenza.
* Her performance was hailed as the “most sublime interpretation of the part”. This is all the more
significant because it happened at a time when the Philippines and its people were scarcely heard of in
Europe.
*Her dream to develop the love for opera among her countrymen led her to found the Artists’ Guild of
the Philippines, which was responsible for the periodic “Tour of Operaland” productions. Her life story
has been documented in the biography Jovita Fuentes: A Lifetime of Music (1978) written by Lilia H.
Chung, and later translated into Filipino by Virgilio Almario
RYAN CAYABYAB
(May 4, 1954)
* Is a Filipino musician, composer and conductor; he was Executive and Artistic Director for several years
of the defunct San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts. He was named a National Artist of the
Philippines in 2018.
*His works range from commissioned full-length ballets, theater musicals, choral pieces, a Mass set to
unaccompanied chorus, and orchestral pieces, to commercial recordings of popular music, film scores
and television specials.
*In Manila, he has conducted the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Cultural Center of the
Philippines for a concert of Philippine and American contemporary music; and the Manila Chamber
Orchestra for a concert of his original works.