Organizations/Performing Group:

Asian Composers League, Chairman, 1975-present
National Music Council, President, 1990-2005
International Music Council, Vice President,1995-2005
National Music Competitions for Young Artists, Secretary General, 1988-2005
International Society for Music Education, member, 2000-2005
National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Commissioner for the Arts, 1998-2004
Cultural Center of the Philippines, Artistic Director -1989-2000
UP Center for Ethnomusicology, Executive Director, 2004-2014
Advisory Panel on World Musics, ISME, 1993-1998
Philippine Music Documentation Center, Founding Director, 1975-1978
UP Composers New Music Group, Founding Director, 1975-1977
SUNY at Buffalo University Chorus, Assistant Conductor, 1970-1971
Ateneo de Manila Glee Club, Conductor, 1972-1973
UP Mixed Concert Chorus, Assistant Conductor, 1965-1967
UP Symphony Orchestra, Member, 1962-1967.
Quezon City Philharmonic Orchestra, Member, 1964-1967.
Pasig Immaculate Conception Choir, Founding Conductor, 1961-1967
UP ROTC Band, 1958-1960.

Awards and Recognition:

Dangal ng Wika, Komisyon ng Wikang Pilipino (2020)
2017 UPAA Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award (2017)
Quezon City Diamond Jubilee Gawad Parangal Award, October 12 (2014)
National Artist Award in Music, June 21 (2014)
Life Achievement Award, Phi Kappa Phi UP chapter, November 24. (2013)
Visiting Artist, Chulalongkorn University Faculty of Fine Arts, June – October. (2013)
Gawad CCP sa Sining Musika, February 27 (2013)
UP Centennial Lecturer (2008)
Asian Public Intellectual Senior Fellowship (2006-2007)
National Book Award for Music: Tunugan: Four Essays on Filipino Music (2006)
General Education Professorial Chair Award, University of the Philippines System, July 28 (2004)
UP Alumni Association Professional Award in Music (2004)
Featured Composer/Lecturer, Academic Conference “Interpretation of Classi
Meets Avant-Garde”, Tainan Women’s College of Arts and Technology, May 27-28 (2004)
Featured Composer/Lecturer, Academic Symposium “Classic Meets Avant- Garde”, Tainan Womens College for Arts and Technology (2003)
Member of Honor, Asian Composers League, elected by the General Assembly, 2003 Asian Music Festival, Tokyo (2003)
Featured Composer, 2003 Asian Music Festival, Tokyo
Featured Composer, 2002 Asian Composers Music Festival, Seoul/Suwon (2002)
Featured Composer, Federation Music Week Festival, Melbourne (2001)
Featured Composer and Lecturer, 2nd Nagano Music Festival (2000)
University Professors Award, Office of the President, University of the Philippines System (2000)
Artist-in-Residence Fellowship, Civitella Ranieri Center, Umbertide, Italy (1999)
Artist-in-Residence, Bellagio Study Center, Italy; Rockefeller Foundation (1998)
Featured Composer and Conductor, 5th Hibiki Hall Festival, Kitakyushu, Japan(1997)
Featured Composer and Conductor, 4th ASEAN Youth Orchestra (2nd cycle), Bangkok, Thailand June 23 (1996)
Featured Composer and Lecturer, FACE THE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC COMPOSER, International Society for Contemporary Music, Taipei (1995)
Achievement Award in the Humanities, National Research Council of the Philippines (1994)
Outstanding Pasigueño (Arts), 421st Araw ng Pasig, Municipal Government of Pasig (1994)
Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan, 120th Araw ng Maynila (1991)
Cultural Visitor, The British Council (1979/1989)
Biography in Contemporary Composers: St. James Contemporary Reference. London: St. James Press (1992)
Featured Composer and Lecturer, 1990 Seoul Contemporary Music Festival, Korea (1990)
Visiting Scholar in Ethnomusicology, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, under Grants from the Ford Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council (1988-1989)
Chevalier de l’Ordre des Artes et Lettres, French Ministry of Culture (1987)
UPIP Professorial Chair in Composition, University of the Philippines (1987)
Official Visitor to India, Ministry of Culture, India (1986)
Official Visitor, Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China (1984)
Ilaw ng Karunungan; Outstanding Fulbrighter in Music, Philippine-American Educational Foundation (1983)
Cultural Visitor, US State Department (1979)
Award of Recognition for Outstanding Achievement in Music, Minerva Association (1963/1976)
Voll Stipendium, Ferienkurse fuer Neue Musik, Darmstadt, Germany (1974)
Cultural Visitor, Culture Ministries of Belgium and the Netherlands (1974)
Fellowship Grant, Indiana University (1968)
Fulbright-Hays Travel Grant (1967)
2nd Prize, Bonifacio Centennial National Composition Contest (Symphonic Ode Category) (1963)


Ramón Pagayon Santos (b. 1941) initially trained in Composition and Conducting at the University of the Philippines, and earned his Master of Music (with distinction) and Ph.D. degrees at Indiana University and State University of New York at Buffalo, respectively. He was a full fellow at the Summer Courses in New Music at Darmstadt, Germany, and undertook post-graduate work in Ethnomusicology at the University of Illinois under grants from the Ford Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council. He has been elected as Member of Honor of the Asian Composers League which he led as Chairman in 1994-1997, as well as elected Vice President of the International Music Council at UNESCO from 2001 to 2005 serving as the first Filipino in the 5-man Praesidium of the highest governing body of the international music community.

As composer, his works have been conceived along concepts and aesthetic frameworks of Philippine and Southeast Asian artistic traditions, featuring elements from western and non-western sources, including various combinations of orchestral instruments, Javanese gamelan, Philippine indigenous instruments, as well as different styles of vocal production. Drawing from the sonic universe of Philippine and Asian musics, he created open-ended temporal and spatial forms such as “Ritwal ng Pasasalamat” and “Likas-An”, and composed works that reveal the essence of Asian performing arts that integrate music, dance, drama and poetry which are found in his “Badiw as Kapoonan”, “Awit ni Pulau”, “Daragang Magayon”, “Ta-O”, “Sandiwaan”, and “Nagnit Igak G’nan Wagnwag Nila” (Alingawngaw ng Kagitingan), sharing his concepts with western and fellow Asian composers in the international gatherings that he has organized from 1978 to 1988 and in the 18th Conference and Festival of the Asian Composers League held in Manila, 1997. His works have been featured in major festivals in the Americas, Europe and in Asia. In 2002 and 2003, special international academic symposia were held in Tainan, Taiwan, on his works, and was invited to present talks on his compositions as well as conduct composition workshops in Tokyo, Uruguay, Bolivia, and the USA.

In the field of Musicology, he has undertaken researches not only in Philippine and Asian contemporary music, but also studied Javanese gamelan music and dance and Nan Kuan, and engaged in continuing field studies of Philippine traditional music such as the musical repertoires of the Ibaloi, the Mansaka, Bontoc, Yakan, and Boholano. His areas of expertise, aside from the above cultural communities also include Philippine Art Music, Philippine Contemporary Music and selected musics from Southeast Asia and the cultural communities of South China. His writings have been published in major national and international journals, books, and encyclopedias, such as the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, the CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, Tunugan: Four Essays on Filipino Music (writer), Laon Laon: Perspectives on Transmission and Pedagogy of Musical Traditions in Post-colonial Southeast Asia, The Vocal Repertoire of the Ibaloy from Kabayan, Modernismo sa Sining Musika (writer), The Musics of the ASEAN (editor and writer), and The New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians, while his biography appears in 500 Contemporary Composers published by St. James Press. He has been invited to give keynote papers, lectures, seminars and workshops in such countries as Russia, Ireland, the USA, Japan, Korea, People’s Republic of China, United Kingdom, Germany, Cambodia, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam. In 2006-2007, he was awarded the Asian Public Intellectual Senior Fellowship that enabled him to do intensive research on transmission of musical cultures in Thailand and Indonesia.

As cultural administrator and educator, he has organized festivals in the NAMCYA in 1991, 1994, 1997 and 2000, the ASEAN Composers Forum on Traditional Music, the International Rondalla Festivals in 2004, 2007, 2011, 2014-2015, and in 2018, as well as the Gongs and Bamboo Festival in 2013. He also initiated the Music Theory Workshop, and the two Composers Forum at the University of the Philippines. These festivals expose the youth into the rich musical heritage of the Filipinos, as well as its counterparts in the rest of the world. It has also developed young talents especially in the fields of composition, as well as in the performance of Philippine traditional musics.

His past appointments include Composition Chair and Dean of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Music, Chairman of the Asian Composers League, and Secretary General of the League of Filipino Composers and the National Music Competitions for Young Artists Foundation, Artistic Director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Head of the Executive Board of the National Music Committee and Commissioner for the Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and Executive Director of the UP Center of Ethnomusicology. He is currently serving as University Professor Emeritus of the UP and President of the Musicological Society of the Philippines. He was named National Artist for Music in 2014.