Danongan Kalanduyan was born on 1 May 1947 in Datu Piang, Maguindanao, Mindanao, Philippines. He was married to Josefina. He died on 28 September 2016 in Stanford, California, USA.
He received a Rockefeller grant to the University of Washington in Seattle as an artist-in-residence in the ethnomusicology program. After an an eight-year residency, he began formal study at the university, and earned a master's degree in ethnomusicology. He moved to California, where he became the musical director of the Kalilang Kulintang Arts of San Francisco.