BAYANI MENDOZA DE LEON

Bayani Mendoza de Leon was a multi-faceted artist: composer, musician, conductor, music director, arranger, writer, poet, ethnomusicologist, folklorist, and cultural scholar.

He was recipient of the 2008 PAMANA award conferred on him by then Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in recognition of “his genius and artistry for being a distinguished composer, musician, and educator who has tremendous influence in raising awareness and appreciation of traditional and contemporary Philippine music in the US".

In the same year, he also received the 2008 Most Outstanding Filipino-American Achiever in America award from the Filipino Heritage Foundation, Inc. He was recipient of the 1965 PALANCA Award for Literature, a Fulbright scholar in music,  and is listed in Oxford's Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He was posthumously awarded the 2014 Gawad Rondalla Grand Award by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).