COKE BOLIPATA ON LIVING LIVES BEYOND PERFORMING

I've come to understand that playing the violin isn't just about sound. It's about memory, legacy, and learning to speak through something that was once given in place of words.

- By PABLO A. TARIMAN

When violinist Alfonso "Coke" Bolipata performs at the Manila Pianos Saturday, June 28 at 6 p.m. with pianist Sandro Zulueta, he will have completed a full cycle as artist and music mentor and festival administrator of the now unique Pundaquit Arts Festival in San Antonio, Zambales.

The recital of short Kreisler, Dvorak, Chopin Massenet and on to Nicanor Abelardo's Cavatina and his very own Song of the Mermaid is really his first in a decade. He told Philippine STAR: "This isn't a repertoire that comes most naturally to me — not because it lacks difficulty, but because it demands a different kind of artistry. The challenge lies in evoking the zeitgeist of a bygone era — one not only lost to time, but also, in many ways, to place. These pieces require a particular spirit, a kind of joie de vivre, a lightness and spontaneity that today's world no longer readily offers."

He notes that the program was really known as salon music that never took itself too seriously. "It has brief emotional arcs that begin and end without grandeur, no sweeping narrative to carry you through exposition, turbulence, and catharsis. In this sense, the long-form works are more forgiving. They allow room for dialogue — with the material, with the audience. Short pieces afford no such space. The music must arrive fully formed — complete, self-contained, and often, paradoxically, more demanding. What is spare must feel abundant; what takes great effort must seem entirely effortless. This is the paradox — and the poetry — of these encore works."

The ones that feel closest to home are the ones he has been playing since he was seven or eight. "These are Méditation, the Kreisler pieces, Songs My Mother Taught Me. And of course, the Filipino works always feel the most familiar, the most instinctive. They engage Filipino audiences with ease — as if telling them a story they already know by heart."