Jerry Amper Dadap (born November 5, 1935) is a Filipino composer, conductor, and educator known for his contributions to Philippine nationalist music. His work is associated with post-independence developments in Philippine art music. He is particularly noted for expanding the symphonic and concert repertoire of the Philippine rondalla. Dadap has composed orchestral, choral, rondalla, and theater works that integrate classical concert forms with elements of Filipino musical traditions, frequently drawing on Philippine historical and cultural themes. His works have been performed in the Philippines and internationally.
Early life and family Dadap was born on November 5, 1935, in Hinunangan, Southern Leyte, the ninth of fourteen children of Vedasto Dadap and Dionisia Amper.Guerrero, Amadís Ma. (20 August 2018). "Composers Dadap hold ‘sentimental’ concerts in old Southern Leyte hometown". Philippine Daily Inquirer. He attributed his early musical exposure primarily to his mother’s family, the Ampers of Bohol, who were known locally for their musical activities. His maternal grandfather formed a small-town orchestra made up of coconut field workers and taught them solfeggio and instrumental performance.
He married the late Celeste Dadap (née Icban), who earned a master’s degree in music education from Columbia University in New York City and taught humanities at the University of the East. She died on March 3, 2002. They had four children: Jerry Jr., a composer and classical guitarist who is also trained as a physicist; Gerald, a visual artist; Jeremy, a violinist; and Bettina Celeste, a singer. His younger brother, Michael Amper Dadap, is a classical guitarist and composer. Michael has credited Jerry with giving him his first musical instruction before he went on to study professionally in the Philippines and the United States.
Education and career Dadap’s earliest formal music instruction came from his elder sister, Feri, who taught him organ and piano for church settings. He later studied theology at Silliman University in Dumaguete City (1954–1956), where he continued music studies and began composing songs and choral works while remaining active in church music. He then enrolled at the Conservatory of Music of the University of the Philippines, where he earned a Bachelor of Music in Composition and Conducting in 1963.
In 1957, while still a student at the University of the Philippines College of Music, Dadap composed Pagmahay, which he later recalled as his first commissioned work. The song was dedicated to Luz B. Magsaysay, the widow of President Ramon Magsaysay. Dadap composed the melody, while his cousin Castor Lee Amper wrote the lyrics. Originally titled Hinagpis, the song was later given the Visayan title Pagmahay by Dadap.
In 1959, Dadap composed his first orchestral work, the symphonic poem The Passionate and the Wild, which won Second Prize at the National Composition Contest in 1960. He later described the work as “modern” in style and noted that it was written before he had received formal training in orchestration, drawing instead on his experience performing with the University of the Philippines Symphony Orchestra.
In addition, Dadap served as a carillonneur of the UP Diliman Carillon from 1960 to 1964. He was the fourth carillon player at the university, following Flora Zarco-Rivera, Wesley Tabayoyong, and Crisostomo Gonzales. During his tenure, Dadap performed daily programs that included university hymns, Western classical repertoire, Filipino folk songs, and popular music of the period, at the request of then UP president Carlos P. Romulo. These performances, together with his work as a janitor at a men’s dormitory, provided income while he was a working student at the university.
During this period, Dadap was active as both a conductor and educator. He served as conductor of the Concert Philippines Symphony Orchestra and began teaching music and rondalla at Ramon Magsaysay High School in Cubao, Quezon City, where he remained from 1962 to 1968. Concert program notes described this period as formative in his efforts to develop the rondalla as a vehicle for symphonic composition and to explore its orchestral possibilities. Shortly after graduating from the University of the Philippines, he served as musical director of the Filipinescas Dance Troupe, directed by choreographer Leonor Orosa-Goquingco, during its 1964 world tour.
On January 24, 1967, Dadap was featured in a Concert Philippines presentation at the Philamlife Auditorium titled "An Evening with the Chorus, Rondalla and Orchestra," which included the world premieres of his Choral Cycle No. 2 and Symphony No. 1 (Primeval), as well as his Choral Symphonic Ode No. 1 and symphonic poem The Passionate and the Wild. During this period, he also served as a regular conductor for the Quezon City Teachers Choral Society.
On March 12, 1968, shortly before leaving for the United States, Dadap staged a farewell concert presented by Concert Philippines at the Philamlife Auditorium in Manila, featuring the world premiere of his Symphony No. 2 (Enfant Terrible) and the premiere of his Song Cycle for Baritone and Orchestra, with texts by poets Bayani M. de Leon, Benjamin V. Afuang, and Jose Lansang Jr., performed by bass-baritone Emmanuel Gregorio with the Concert Philippines Symphony Orchestra, with Sergio Esmilla as concertmaster.
Reviewing the event for The Manila Times, critic Exequiel S. Molina described Symphony No. 2 as characterized by dense blocks of sound and the juxtaposition of atonal and polyrhythmic passages, noting Dadap’s growing focus on contemporary compositional techniques and “absolute music,” then uncommon in Philippine symphonic literature.
In the same year, Dadap received a study-observation grant to the USA, from the Music Promotion Foundation of the Philippines, a government music promotion body created under Republic Act No. 1370. From 1968 to 1971, he pursued advanced studies in composition at the Mannes College of Music in New York City on a full scholarship from the United Presbyterian Church (USA). He obtained a post-graduate diploma in Composition from the institution in 1971.
According to the Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, Dadap was the first Filipino to conduct his own works at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City in 1971. Contemporary accounts further document his active concert presence in the United States during this period, including a 1971 concert of his works at Mannes College of Music in New York City, listed in the Village Voice concert calendar. He also presented his music at composers’ symposia and academic institutions abroad, including the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston (1970), Yale University (1971), and the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal (1971), where his works were heard by international audiences.
In The New York Times, critic Peter G. Davis reviewed the Carnegie concert, noting the composer’s emphasis for formal symmetry and structural clarity in his chamber music. Davis described that the second movement of Symphony No. 2 (1967), performed for string orchestra, stood apart stylistically, describing it as “pleasantly impressionistic,” “melodically direct,” and “altogether more inventive.”
Upon returning to the Philippines later in 1971, he became active as a music educator, teaching theory, ear training, composition, and orchestration at the Conservatory of Music of the Santa Isabel College of Manila, and later serving on the faculty of the University of Santo Tomas Conservatory of Music.
Major works Early in his career, Dadap was recognized in Art: Perception and Appreciation as a composer of note for works that integrate Filipino indigenous ensembles with symphonic concert forms. This approach is evident in works such as Choral Symphonic Ode No. 1 for Chorus, Rondalla, and Orchestra. He also explored indigenous instruments in theater works such as Lam-ang: Son of Namongan, Tomaneg at Aniway, and Sultan Kudarat.
Dance and ballet works Dadap composed music for modern dance and ballet and collaborated with several Filipino choreographers.
One of his early works in this area is Lam-ang: Son of Namongan (1974), a theatrical production based on the Ilocano epic Biag ni Lam-ang that included a ballet component. The ballet was choreographed by Corazon Generoso Iñigo for the UE Dance Company. The production has been described in the literature as an early adaptation of a Filipino epic into modern ballet.
In 1975, Dadap composed the music for Tomaneg at Aniway, a modern dance work choreographed by Gener Caringal that drew on indigenous ritual and performance traditions as structural sources for contemporary ballet and modern dance.
In 1980, he composed the music for La Lampara, a ballet staged by Ballet Philippines and choreographed by Basilio Esteban S. Villaruz. Villaruz later noted that Dadap conceived the score as an abstract musical work, which the choreographer shaped into a narrative portraying José Rizal’s final hours. The ballet was revived in 1991 in connection with the centenary of El Filibusterismo and has been cited for its symbolic treatment of Rizal’s life and ideals.
Theater and multimedia works The Redemption (1974)Teodoro, John Iremil E., ed. (2018). Ang imahen ng Filipino sa sining: sangguniang aklat sa pagpapahalaga sa sining. Manila: Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino. ISBN 978-621-8064-60-7. was commissioned by cultural advocate Victor Puyat for the unveiling of Eduardo Castrillo’s Last Supper monument at Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina. The work was completed in 1974 and first publicly performed on April 25, 1976, at the Union Church of Manila under the sponsorship of the Loyola Group of Companies. Redemption is a large-scale orchestral and choral work that includes the seminal choral piece Aleluya, which was later adapted as an a cappella work and has since been performed in the Philippines and abroad.
In 2004, Aleluya was included in a yearlong series of all-Filipino concerts by the San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra and the San Miguel Master Chorale, where it was described as technically demanding and characterized by polymetrical rhythm. A contemporary review noted that Dadap's Aleluya concluded the first half of the concert program with "a vibrant, rhythmically exciting work that spanned a dynamic, wide range." In a 2014 review of the album Beyond the Eastern Wind by the Danish choir Collegium Vocale in International Record Review, critic William Hedley described the piece as “a highly rhythmic, tonal cry of joy.”
A later large-scale sacred work, The Resurrection and Redemption Story (2007), was commissioned by St. Stephen High School for its 90th foundation anniversary and premiered as part of the choral concert Images of Christ in Manila. Scored for chorus, soloists, and orchestra, the work depicts the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ and concludes with Dadap’s choral setting Aleluya, a piece that also appears in his earlier oratorio The Redemption.
Andrés Bonifacio: Ang Dakilang Anak-Pawis (1979) ("Andrés Bonifacio, The Great Plebeian") is a musical based on the life of revolutionary leader Andrés Bonifacio. It was first presented in 1979 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Theater (now Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo) with an original cast of 200 performers. Dadap collaborated with playwright Dionisio Salazar and poet Rogelio Mangahas, both Palanca Award recipients, who served as librettists, and Paulino Capitulo as historical consultant. The title role of Bonifacio was portrayed by baritone Elmo Makil, with Gregoria de Jesus sung by mezzo-soprano Jay Valencia-Glorioso, and the narrator played by Tommy Abuel. The production was sponsored by businessman Alfonso “Jing” Puyat and was scored for orchestra and choir.