Ryan Cayabyab

Wikipedia:

Ryan Cayabyab (born Raymundo Cipriano Pujante Cayabyab but known as Mr. C) is a Filipino musician and was the Executive and Artistic Director of the defunct San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts. He was also a resident judge for the only season of Philippine Idol in 2006.

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.

Cayayab's current project includes the Ryan Cayabyab Singers (RCS), a group of seven young adult singers comparable to his prior group Smokey Mountain in the early '90s. After FreemantleMedia decided not to renew the Philippine Idol franchise, Cayabyab transferred to rival show Pinoy Dream Academy (season 2), replacing Jim Paredes as the show's headmaster. PDA 2 started on June 14, 2008.

Early life

Ryan Cayabyab was born on May 4, 1954 in Manila, Philippines. His mother died when he was only 6, and his father struggled to support him and his three other siblings. His mother's dying wish was that none of her children would pursue music as a profession, knowing how hard life is for a musician with meager earnings (she was an opera singer).

Thus, Cayabyab initially took up Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in the University of the Philippines, Diliman. But at the same time, he looked for a job in order to support his studies, and eventually landed with then-Senator Salvador Laurel as accompanist for the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) Chorale Ensemble. Noticing Cayabyab's exceptional talent on the piano, Laurel offered Cayabyab a scholarship which would allow Cayabyab to shift his course and pursue an education in music.

And so Cayabyab later graduated from the UP College of Music earning a Bachelor of Music, Major in Theory degree. After that, he became a full time professor for the Department of Composition and Music Theory in the UP Diliman for almost two decades.

At the turn of the century, Cayabyab was about to bring his family and migrate abroad, but when offered by Danding Cojuangco (President of the San Miguel Corporation) a command post that would give him full access in producing and performing new music that would bring forth a fresh wave to the Philippine music scene, Cayabyab accepted the offer. Today he is currently in his 7th year as Executive and Artistic Director of the [San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts].

Personal life

He is married to Emmy Punsalan with 2 children: Cristina Maria and Antonio Maria Cayabyab.

Credentials

As music, director, conductor and accompanist, he has performed with leading Philippine music personalities at Avery Fisher Hall in the Lincoln Center in New York City; Carnegie Hall (both the Main and Recital halls) in New York; the Kennedy Center and the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.; the Shrine in Los Angeles; the Orpheum in Vancouver; even at the Circus Maximus of the Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip.

He has traveled, as music director in most of the Southeast Asian cities, in the cities of Australia as well as in Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States. He has worked in the same shows with Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra, as well as conducted the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra for special performances of American jazz singer Diane Schuur and pianist Jim Chappel.

He has performed as music director in command performances for King Hasan II in Rabat, Morocco, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia of Spain in Manila, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in Tangiers, Queen Beatrix at the Noordeinde Palace in the Netherlands, and U.S. President Bill Clinton in Boston, Massachusetts.

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.

Ryan Cayabyab is a laureate of the Onassis International Cultural Competitions (2nd Prize), having won for original music composition for dance (2001).

He is a TOYM (Ten Outstanding Young Men) awardee for contemporary Filipino music in 1978. He won the Grand Prize award at the first Metro Manila Popular Music Festival for the song "Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika".

As of 2006, he has won three international Grand Prix awards for his compositions; in the First Seoul Song Festival, in the Voice of Asia Song Festival in the former U.S.S.R., and in the Tokyo Music Festival. He has won the Jingle of the Year award from the Philippine advertising industry as well as Bronze Awardee at the New York Film and Television Awards. He has won a total of ten best movie score awards from the various film award-giving bodies.

TV

Ryan, Ryan, Musikahan, the television show, has won a total of fourteen awards as Best Television Musical Show and for Mr. Cayabyab, the Best Show Host in various television award-giving bodies. Likewise, as an artist, producer, arranger, and composer, he has won a total of eighteen awards from the recording industry for various commercial recordings. He has produced albums of the popular Filipino teen group Smokey Mountain, Broadway and West End's diva, Lea Salonga, and Spain's internationally acclaimed singer Julio Iglesias.

In 1987 He was Composed the Orchestral-Type Jingle of ABS-CBN, Was Used on Station ID and Station Notice Sign-on and Sign-off.

In 2006, Cayabyab signed on as a resident judge for the first season of Philippine Idol, offering critiques for the contestants on the reality-talent show. He was said to be personally chosen by the top guns of Philippine Idol, while the other two judges, Pilita Corrales and the late Francis Magalona, had to undergo auditions. He also composed the themes of TV Patrol and The World Tonight in 1992 and it was used until 1996.

He is the composer Mabuhay song, the opening song of Miss Universe 1994 in Manila, Philippines.

Movies

Ryan Cayabyab has been a prolific movie composer and among the movies that contain his original works are:

Theater

Among his many works, his theater musicals Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo have won acclaim and have been performed extensively in the cities of Japan in 1994 and 1996, with a special NHK broadcast in November 1996, and in Kuala Lumpur in 1996. Another musicale, Magnificat, has logged in almost 200 performances.

His other popular musicals include Katy (words by Jose Javier Reyes), Alikabok, Ilustrado and the classic pop-ballet Rama Hari (words by 2006 National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera). His latest opera, Spoliarium (libretto by Fides Cuyugan-Asensio), premiered in February 2003 at the Tanghalan Nicanor Abelardo of the CCP, and is to be followed by another opera also with Asensio, Mariang Makiling at Ang Mga Nuno sa Punso, with music also by Ryan Cayabyab.

Recently, in 2011, He lent his musical genius once more by composing music for the bio-musicale "Ageless Passion" (libretto by Kristian Jeff Agustin), commissioned by the family of Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban (Ret.), staged at the Meralco theater.

Awards

Ryan Cayabyab is 2004's Gawad CCP Awardee for Music. On February 2, 1999, he was selected as one of the 100 awardees of the CCP Centennial Honors for the Arts . He became the first recipient of the Antonio C. Barreiro Achievement Award on 4 May 1996 for significant and lasting contributions to the growth and development of Filipino music. Likewise, in 18 June 1996, Awit Awards, the recording industry awards, awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award for "invaluable contribution and outstanding achievements in the promotion and development of Filipino music." The University of the Philippines Alumni Association has conferred upon him the Professional Award in music for the year 1998.

Ryan Cayabyab The Music Studio, a music school that specializes in developing outstanding performance artists is run by Emmy Cayabyab, Ryan's wife. Established in 1986, the music studio has trained a whole generation of young singer-performers who have become nationally known Filipino performing artists.

Ryan is married to Emmy Punsalan and has a daughter, Cristina Maria, and a son, Antonio Maria, a freshman at the Ateneo, taking up AB Communication Arts. They reside in Quezon City, Philippines.

SMFPA

Ryan Cayabyab was also the Executive and Artistic Director of the San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts. He was the conductor of the San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra (SMPO) and the San Miguel Master Chorale (SMMC). Under his direction, the SMPO and the SMMC have recorded seven award-winning albums to date: Great Filipino Love Songs (2004), Great Original Pilipino Music by Ryan Cayabyab (2004), The Sacred Works of Ryan Cayabyab (2004), Pasko I and Pasko II (2005), Great Original Pilipino Music from the Movies (2006), and Dancing in the Rain (2006).

But in a swift and silent move, the big bosses of the San Miguel Corporation have already disbanded the SMMC and the SMPO. Late January 2007, instrumentalists of the SMPO and SMMC were summoned one by one by the big bosses who informed them of the non-renewal of their contracts. Insider reports say that the SMC was "more inclined" on supporting its four professional basketball teams.

Ryan Cayabyab has already graced an interview regarding this, saying that he considered the experience with San Miguel as a learning one, and not at all a setback. The following are excerpts from the said interview by Rito Asilo of The Inquirer.

The experience proved that it could work -- because it did in our case! I learned so much from it. I still wouldn’t consider the group world-class, but we were getting there!

Five years is too short a time to build a good reputation. But, I didn’t really see any malice in the management’s decision to pull the plug. It might have had something to do with the viability of the company -- there may have been a clamor from inside to cut the umbilical cord. And, I understand that they also have to answer to their stockholders. Perhaps this is something you need to ask them yourself.

We had a five-year program, but it kept getting stifled and derailed because of the constant talk that we were going to get cut off. But, I loved how the group worked as an organization! It was an exercise in discipline. Suddenly, temperamental and emotional artists who were used to the culture of ‘Pinoy racket’ and bara-bara had to learn how to toe the line!

If big companies can come to the realization that the concept works, everybody will benefit from the whole experience -- Filipino artists, especially.