Grace Nono is a Filipino singer, known for her musical style based on traditional Filipino rhythms. She is also an ethnomusicologist, scholar of Philippine shamanism, and cultural worker. Early life and education Grace Nono was born on May 6, 1965 in Butuan, Agusan, Caraga region, northeastern Mindanao, southern Philippines, years before Agusan was divided into two independent provinces. She was raised in the historic town of Bunawan, now a part of Agusan del Sur. Her mother, Ramona R. Sacote, originally from Camiguin island, was an English and mathematics teacher, writer, and school administrator during the foundational years of what is now the Agusan Del Sur State College of Agriculture and Technology. Her father, Igmedio A. Nono, originally from Nueva Ecija, was a farmer leader who promoted land reform, established cooperatives, and advocated organic farming long before it was widespread. Grace attended the East Bunawan Central School where she graduated at the top of her class in 1976. After a year at the Agusan National High School, she moved to the Philippine High School for the Arts where she majored in Theatre Arts, finishing in 1981. Grace went on to complete a bachelor's degree in Humanities in 1986 from the UP College Baguio, then an extension campus of the University of the Philippines Diliman. She proceeded to do a master's degree in Area Studies focusing on the Philippines in 2004 from UP Diliman in Quezon City. In 2009, Grace began her doctoral studies in Ethnomusicology at New York University, graduating in 2014. Grace received a second master's degree in Religious and Gender Studies in 2019 from Yale University. She has been a fellow of the Asian Cultural Council in New York in 2008 and in 2017–19, the UCLA Asia Pacific Performance Exchange in Los Angeles in 2006, the Asia-Pacific Cultural Center for UNESCO in Kyoto in 2009, the Asian Institute of Management's Managing the Arts Program in Makati in 2003, and the Global Research Initiative in Florence in 2013. From 2015 to 2016, Grace was awarded a post-doctoral position at the Harvard Divinity School’s Women’s Studies in Religion Program, with residency at the Center for the Study of World Religions in Cambridge. Performance Work Grace is known for her music performances that draw from Philippine sung oral traditions. She has performed in over sixty cities and venues in over twenty countries in Asia, Europe, and North America. These performances have included