International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance

A Non-Governmental Organization in Formal Consultative Relations with UNESCO

Philippines

José Maceda

Dr. José M. Maceda (1917–2004)

The presence of ICTM in the Philippines is rooted in and nourished by the vision and legacy of the late ethnomusicologist and Philippine National Artist Dr. José M. Maceda whose systematic and pioneering comparative research on traditional Philippine music had paved the way for its understanding such as mapping out the distribution of music instruments, genres, and concepts like “drone and melody,” “interlock,” and “musical social cooperation” throughout the Philippine archipelago and their links to Southeast Asia. Current research on these subjects are undertaken by Dr. Maceda’s students like Prof. Felipe de Leon, Jr, Dr. Ramon P. Santos, and Dr. Nicole Revel , all of who have sustained Dr. Maceda’s quest for the humanistic “science” of traditional Philippine music, albeit in accordance to the students’ individual research trajectories that the teacher himself, Dr. Maceda, did not anticipate.

Prof. de Leon is currently the Commissioner in Music of the [Philippine government] National Commission for Culture and Arts and head of the Humanities Division of the National Research Council of the Philippines . Dr. Ramon Santos directs the University of the Philippines Center for Ethnomusicology, while French national Dr. Nicole Revel of CNRS (Paris) had founded the Ateneo de Manila Archive of Philippine Epics and Ballads.

Filipino members of ICTM hold administrative, teaching, and research positions in the University of the Philippines College of Music, Department of Musicology and in the Philippine Women's University, School of Music, which are the only two schools that grant doctoral programs in music at the present moment in the Philippines.

Some ICTM members, although not necessarily from the Philippines, have done academic research, summaries of which can be accessed in the following websites:

  • Bukidnon (Mindanao) by Hans Brandeis (link)
  • Agusan Manobo (Mindanao) by José S. Buenconsejo (link)
  • Filipino Diatonic Harp by Stephen L. Grauberger (link)

In addition, ICTM members in the Philippines have continually contributed academic research on Philippine music to Musika Jornal of UP Center for Ethnomusicology and Humanities Diliman, an interdisciplinary journal in the Humanities by the University of the Philippines that I am the incumbent Editor-in-Chief.

For news and announcements regarding the activities of current ICTM members in the Philippines, please visit the website Journal of Philippine Music (https://jphilmusic.wordpress.com/), that I maintain.

For general and specific queries on traditional Philippine music and dance, please do not hesitate to email me at jose.buenconsejo@gmail.com.

Yours truly,

José S. Buenconsejo, PhD
Liaison Officer for the Philippines

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