Organizations/Performing Group:

University of the Philippines Symphony Orchestra
Kwerdas Filipinas Symphonic Rondalla
Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (FILSCAP); ACL Philippines; Strings for Unity

Awards and Recognition:

Gawad Chanselor Para sa Natatanging Guro 2014
International Award for the Arts, U.P. 2000
2022 UPAA Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award
U.P. University Artist III (2009 - 2020)
SUDI National Award in Music 2021 (National Commission for Culture and the Arts)
T.O.Y.M. Award (Arts) (1997) (The Oustanding Young Men) 1997
Civitella Ranieri International Fellowship Award- in Arts - Italy / N.Y. 2004
American Society of Composers and Publisher-Raymund Hubbel Award in Composition 1986
Outstanding Original Musical Composition for the opera, SAN ANDRES B, 2014 6th Gawad Buhay - Philstage Award
Outstanding Musical Direction for the opera, SAN ANDRES B,
2014 6th Gawad Buhay - Philstage Award
Outstanding Musical Direction for ANAK DATU (a Tanghalang Pilipino Theater Production ) - 2023 13th Gawad Buhay - Philstage Award
Best Musical Direction for ANAK DATU (a Tanghalang Pilipino Theater Production - 2022 ALIW Award
One UP Professorial Chair (2016-2018, 2019-2021, 2022-2024)
UP Diliman Centennial Professorial Chair (2014, 2020)
ULIRANG AMA 2018
Bayani ng Malolos Award 2017
Outstanding Alumni Award, Far Eastern University 2013
Pacific Music Festival – Pacific Composers Fellowship Award PMF Sapporo Japan
1989 Movie Musical Scorer of the Year (Emir) 27th PMPC Star Award for Movies 2011
Best Musical Scorer (Emir) – Golden Screen Award



International composer -conductor Josefino Chino Toledo is a professor of composition and University Artist III at the University of the Philippines. In 2022, the UP Board of Regents appointed him as Professor Emeritus. Currently, Prof. Toledo is the music director/conductor of U.P. Symphony Orchestra and and chair of the department of composition and theory, UP College of Music. He was the music director of Metro Manila Concert Orchestra, Manila Symphony Orchesta and Grupo 20/21 Modular Music Ensemble, and former associate artistic director and conductor of the first Asia-Europe Music Camp, a project created by the Asia-Europe Foundation. He was also the artistic director of the 2018 Banaue International Music Composition Competition.

His works have been performed at festivals and in concerts and recitals in Australasia, Europe, America, and Asia by well-known international artists and ensembles; his choral music has had widespread exposure in international competitions and festivals in Slovenia, Hong Kong, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Spain, Hungary, Italy, and Wales. “Misa Lingua Sama-sama”, a mass that fuses Filipino and Latin texts, was presented at the 2015 centennial celebration of the University of the Philippines College of Music; his 2013 opera “San Andres B”—about the Philippine national hero Andrés Bonifacio—received the Gawad Buhay-Philstage awards for Outstanding Original Musical Composition and Outstanding Musical Direction. Recent commissions include “Hoy! Bata” (soprano and orchestra), by the Japan Foundation—Asia Center (for IlluminArt Orchestra and conductor Tomomi Nishimoto); competition pieces for the National Music Competition for Young Artists; “Dinggin: Maging Ang Mga Kwerdas ay Sumasamo ng Kapayapaan” (Listen: Even The Strings Are Pleading for Peace), for the International Rondalla Festival in the Philippines; and “Tangis” (Lament), for Erhu and String Quartet.

The 2018 premier performance at the Lincoln Center (New York) of his work “Agos” (for narrator and chamber ensemble) was described in Classical Music Network, New York as “It was highly emotional…so emotional that it resembled Schoenberg’s Survivor from Warsaw. Musically, Mr. Toledo varied each verse with consummate skill. Initially an orchestral rolling and roaring, then what sounded like a Luzon folk song, followed by more tumult and more folk material.” The work was performed by the New Juilliard Ensemble on the opening concert of its 2018 concert season.

Toledo’s music has been described as "pure and powerful”; and “full of energy, and often bears a relationship to the traditional music of Southeast Asia.” He has been widely praised for his ability to fuse Western and Asian aesthetics. Music critic Rosalinda Orosa described him as “a composer-conductor of considerable worth” and “...an ingenious, remarkably original composer of singular creativity and imagination.” Meanwhile, Toledo’s conducting has been described as "clear and expressive"; and "like weaving a musical magic". According to Philippine art critic and National Artist Leonor Goquingco, “Toledo is one of the (Philippines’) finest and best conductors ever.”

(Excerpted from the Entertainment Press Society of the Philippines)