About Us - UP Center for Ethnomusicology

The core holding of the Center is the Jose Maceda Collection, consisting of library and archive materials including sound recordings, field notes, video, film, still photographs, and other documentary items as well as musical instruments, and original music compositions that were put together by Dr. Maceda, his research staff and other scholars since 1953. Together with Dr. Maceda’s personal collections which were officially transferred and deposited at the U.P. Center for Ethnomusicology last September 22, 2005, the collection has recently been inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in August 2007, as an item of documentary heritage of exceptional value.

In 2019, the UPCE transferred to the second floor of the newly-constructed Jose Maceda Hall, annexed to the U.P. College of Music, Abelardo Hall in Diliman, Quezon City. The larger space houses the massive collection and provides a venue for researchers, scholars, archivists, and musicians to engage with the entire collection.

The Center is directly administered by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development since 2018 and provides direct access to the faculty and graduate students of the College of Music. It has established linkages with international institutions and individual scholars, several of whom have also deposited copies of their studies and researches in the collection. It continues to produce recordings of traditional Philippine and Southeast Asian music, journals, books, a research manual, and other educational materials, and has organized various local and international symposia, conferences, and performances.

Maceda, José (b. January 31, 1917, Manila – d. May 5, 2004, Quezon City). Philippine composer of interdisciplinary works that have been performed throughout the world; he is also active as an ethnomusicologist.

Prof. Maceda studied piano with Victorina Lobregat at the Academy of Music in Manila, where he graduated in 1935, and with Alfred Cortot at the École Normale de Musique de Paris from 1937–41. Later he studied in the USA, including private piano studies with E. Robert Schmitz in San Francisco from 1946–49 and musicology studies at Queens College and Columbia University from 1950–52. He then studied anthropology at the University of Chicago and ethnomusicology at Indiana University in 1957–58 and the University of California at Los Angeles from 1961–63, where he earned his PhD. He also worked with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris in 1958.

Among his many honors are grants from the Guggenheim (1957–58, for study in the USA) and Rockefeller (1968, for research in Africa and Brazil) foundations, the honor l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques in France (1978) and the University of The Philippines Outstanding Research Award (1985). He has also received the John D. Rockefeller Award from the Asian Cultural Council in New York (1987), the Philippine National Science Society Achievement Award (1988), the award Tanglaw ng Lahi from Ateneo University (1988), and the award Gawad ng Lahi from the Cultural Center of The Philippines (1989).

Furthermore, he has received the Fumio Koizumi Award for Ethnomusicology in Japan (1992), the National Research Council Award (1993), the award Araw ng Maynila (1996), the Nikkei Award in Tokyo (1997), the award of the Fondazione Civitella Ranieri in Italy (1997), and the title of National Artist for Music (1998). He also holds the titles of Officier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite (1997) and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (2001) from the government of France.

Initially active as a pianist, he appeared in France, The Philippines and the USA from 1935–57, during which time he introduced many new works, mainly by French composers, and pioneered a French style of piano playing in The Philippines. He also appeared as a conductor of avant-garde music that he arranged for various Philippine organizations and UNESCO from 1964–68 and introduced music by Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis and other composers alongside Chinese and Philippine music.

He taught as Professor of Piano and Ethnomusicology at the University of The Philippines from 1952–90, where he was named a University Professor in 1988 and as professor emeritus until 2004. He served as Executive Director of its Center for Ethnomusicology from 1997–2004. He has also given lectures throughout the world, including the Charles Seeger Lecture at the meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology in Los Angeles in 1984 and a lecture as the International Arts Symposium Speaker at the National Academy of Arts in Seoul in 1994. Most recently, he spoke at the Arts Summit in Indonesia in 1995, was the Rayson Huang Visiting Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong in 1999 and served as the Jean-MacDuff Vaux composer-in-residence at Mills College in 2000.

Prof. Maceda has devoted much of his time to ethnomusicological studies of the music of The Philippines and Southeast Asia since 1953. He has done field music research throughout The Philippines and in eastern and western Africa, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam and has written extensively about this research for publications in Canada, Germany, Malaysia, The Philippines, the UK, and the USA.

He wrote the book Gongs and Bamboos: A Panorama of Philippine Music Instruments (1998, University of The Philippines Press) and the composer-pianist Yuji Takahashi translated many of his articles into Japanese in the book Drone and Melody (1989, Shinjuku Shobo Company). In addition, the University of The Philippines in Quezon City contains an archive of more than 2,500 hours of his field recordings in 51 language groups, complete with musical instruments, photographs, text transcriptions, and translations.