A L F O N S O  B O L I P A T A, violin (P H I L I P P I N E S)

ALFONSO BOLIPATA is the one of the country’s leading artists, a seasoned performer, teacher, writer, and administrator, earning him wide recognition for his performances and efforts in cultural development, including the 2000 TOYM Award (Ten Outstanding Young Men), the Katha Award for his recording “Pelikula,” the 2001 Aliw Award as Best Instrumentalist for his performance of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, the 2002 Gawad Ng Maynila Award, the 1997 National Book Award (Book Design) for his children’s book Water In The Ring Of Fire, and later this February, the NCCA Alab Ng Haraya Award. Mr. Bolipata started the violin at the age of 8 with Oscar C. Yatco as a scholar of Stella G. Brimo, and continued with Basilio Manalo and Rizalina Buenaventura. At 12, he won First Prize in the National Music Competitions for Young Artists, went on to study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. His teachers included Dorothy Delay, Jascha Brodsky, Felix Galimir, and James Buswell. He has performed worldwide as soloist and chamber musician in the major halls in America including Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fischer Hall, Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, and Kennedy Center, as well as performances in Canada, Munich, Frankfurt, Paris, St. Nazaire, Japan, and Indonesia. He has performed with the Beijing Philharmonic, the Nagoya Philharmonic, and the Bulgaria Radio Orchestra, and is a regular soloist of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1990 he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (Washington) and Artists Affiliates (New York) to bring culture to the rural areas of America, spending nine months in Dodge City, Kansas, performing and giving lectures. Shortly after, he returned to the Philippines and founded CASA San Miguel, a community-based arts center in Zambales that integrates arts and the rural community, working with over a hundred gifted children from the community who now play violin, viola, cello, draw, paint, or act. Recently he co-founded the Metro Manila Community Orchestra, a community-based orchestra designed for the urban area, and the Symphony by the Sea Community Orchestra composed of gifted students from CASA San Miguel with musician employees at SBMA who are also policemen, firemen, and engineers. Mr. Bolipata has also served as a Trustee of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.