Ryan Cayabyab

Raymundo Cipriano Pujante Cayabyab (born May 4, 1954), known professionally as Ryan Cayabyab (Tagalog: [ˈɾajɐn kɐjɐbˈjab]), is a Filipino musician, composer and conductor of Original Pilipino Music (OPM). He was the Executive and Artistic Director for several years for the defunct San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts. He was named National Artist of the Philippines for Music in 2018.

His works range from commissioned full-length ballets, theater musicals, choral pieces, a Mass set to the unaccompanied chorus, and orchestral pieces, to commercial recordings of popular music, film scores and television specials.

He composed the Da Coconut Nut Song performed by his Smokey Mountain band, Cayabyab's current project includes the Ryan Cayabyab Singers (RCS), a group of seven singers comparable to Smokey Mountain in the early 1990s. After FreemantleMedia decided not to renew the Philippine Idol franchise, Cayabyab transferred to rival show Pinoy Dream Academy, replacing Jim Paredes as the show's headmaster. PDA 2 started on June 14, 2008. He also became the chairman of the board of judges for GMA Network's musical-reality show To The Top.

He is the executive director of the PhilPop MusicFest Foundation Inc., the organization behind the Philippine Popular Music Festival.

Born Raymundo Cayabyab on May 4, 1954. At age four, Cayabyab was learning piano from music students' boarders while accompanying his mother in the UP campus. He was also often brought to music rehearsals in the Abelardo Hall by his mother. When Cayabyab was six years old, his mother died due to cancer at the age of 43. According to Cayabyab later in life, that his mother discouraged him and his sibling from pursuing a musical career due to hardship his mother herself experienced as a musician.

After his mother's death, Cayabyab stumbled upon a box full of piano pieces left behind by UP music students, and used the manuscript to teach himself play the piano. By age 14, he was able to perform Johann Sebastian Bach's preludes and a solo piano reduction of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Graduating from high school, at age 15 he was able to secure a job as a pianist of a bank's chorale group. His earnings would later fund his collegiate studies. Cayabyab initially took up a bachelor's degree in business administration major in accounting at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, as a way to honor his mother's request.

In 1972, Cayabyab became involved with the Philippine Madrigal Singers and became acquainted with Victor Laurel, a film and theater actor at the time, who often worked with actress-singer Nora Aunor. Senator Salvador Laurel, taking notice of Cayabyab's talent, convinced him to pursue collegiate studies in music and offered him a scholarship. With the consent of his father, Cayabyab moved to the UP College of Music the following year.