Joey Ayala

Joey Ayala (born José Iñigo Homer Lacambra Ayala on June 1, 1956 in Bukidnon, Philippines) is a contemporary pop music artist in the Philippines. He is well known for his style of music that combines the sounds of Filipino ethnic instruments with modern pop music. His professional music career started when he released an album recorded in a makeshift-studio in 1982. To date, he has released six albums.

Some of the Filipino ethnic instruments Ayala is known to use include the two-stringed Hegalong of the T'Boli people of Mindanao and the 8-piece gong set, Kulintang melodical gong-rack of the predominantly Muslim peoples of the southern part of the country. He also uses modern instruments in his music, such as the electric guitar, bass guitar, and drums.

He is one of a few Filipino contemporary songwriters who insists on putting his creative energies at the service of cultural/social development, so much so that he has ventured directly into non-formal education - the running of workshops demonstrating the use of arts as a language for education.

The name of his band "Bagong Lumad" literally means "New Native" - a name and philosophy that has been carried over into Bagong Lumad Artists Foundation, Inc. (www.blafi.org), now a UNDP Responsible Party working on SiningBayan (Social Artistry) capacity-building projects with the Civil Service Commission, the Department of Education, and other GOs and NGOs in the Philippines.

Ayala also serves as the (2008–10) Chairman of the National Committee on Music under the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (www.ncca.gov.ph).