Kudyapi Master Samaon Sulaiman

By Julienne -

As a follow-up to the previous post about kudyapi (2-stringed lute), I give you the master himself, Manlilikha ng Bayan Samaon Sulaiman, a folk music artist from Maganoy, Maguindanao. He was awarded the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (National Living Treasure Award) in 1993.

As envisioned under R.A. 7355, “Manlilikha ng Bayan” shall mean a citizen engaged in any traditional art uniquely Filipino whose distinctive skills have reached such a high level of technical and artistic excellence and have been passed on to and widely practiced by the present generation in his/her community with the same degree of technical and artistic competence. ~ NCCA

He died in May of last year. A year later the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) paid tribute to Sulaiman with Mamayog: the Music of Samaon Sulaiman, a set of audio recordings with a book containing more than 300 pages of transcriptions of these recordings and a monograph about the Maguindanaon kutyapi, published by the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan.

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