Bravo, Cecile!

Last weekend, Cecile Licad, eminent world-class Filipino pianist, was doing the rounds of concerts. On Friday, she was at the Marian Auditorium of Miriam College. On Saturday, she was at CASA San Miguel in San Antonio, Zambales and on Sunday she was at the Insular Building at Ayala Alabang. These were all benefit concerts and beneficiaries for this round were Bantay Bata and CASA San Miguel, which my brother, Coke Bolipata, founded and continues to be president of. In many ways, the concerts were a family reunion of sorts. But that is getting a bit ahead of my story.

The Licads and Bolipatas are great family friends and our family’s travails and fortunes are somehow linked. Our history begins with, as usual, a mythical story from my mother. My brother Chino Bolipata, when he was very young, had performed at a concert where Mrs. Licad or Tita Charing as we fondly call her, was in the audience. At the end of the night, Tita Charing went up to my mother and suggested that he try out to study abroad. She suggested that he first try out for the New School of Music so that he could have more training in preparation for Curtis, where her daughter Cecile was enrolled. She even offered to hand-deliver the tape of him playing to the school. The school’s response? Send him over at once. After a few months at New School, Chino moved to the Curtis Institute of Music. He was only 15. And I was only 6. That moment would transform our family life forever.

This was sometime in the ‘70s and culture was ripe and very much alive, partly because of Imelda Marcos’ keen interest in the arts. Under a program called the Young Artists Foundation of the Philippines, Imelda provided scholarships to young and promising musicians to study abroad. The program sent all of my brothers (the other two went to Juilliard) along with a host of other musicians — Raul Sunico, Rene Dalandan, Joseph Esmilla, Tony Maigue, Rowena Arrieta, Donnie Fernandez among others. Together, they did well abroad and brought home a ton of awards for the country. In my young mind, and perhaps in all our young minds, People Power, and the role we would all be able to play in it in our individual ways, was far, far, far away. In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, our lives were filled with the musical careers of my prodigy brothers.

My eldest sister would eventually also move to Philadelphia and together with Chino, they grew up in the Licad household. Tita Charing was like a second mother to my siblings. Until today, they remember how much she loved watching All My Children in the middle of the day. Deep down, Cecile and Chino, who would turn out to be world-class performers, were children at heart, if prodigies by birth. This resulted in a personality that was at once intense but also childlike. The world responds differently to prodigies and, in a sense, the closest people around them were the primary adjustors to genius.

I would have a close-up experience with this genius every time Cecile would come home and spend time with us. She is beautiful in the classic sense of the word: high cheekbones, well-shaped chin, limpid black eyes and glorious hair. Her low (and I do mean very low) voice surprises everyone as it completely does not match her looks. Even then, she was quick to laughter and easygoing to be with. Once, on a trip to the beach, my sisters and I were her escorts and it was wonderful to see her respond to the ocean. In a blue bathing suit, she seemed almost nymph-like. I remember how much she loved Filipino food!

This was in the heady ‘80s before the fall of the empire, so to speak, and the truth is, I have memories of this period that would astonish you. Not because they are stories of lavishness, but because they are stories of how alive culture was in our country. I kid you not when I tell you that, often, the orchestra would be in our sala rehearsing. My childhood was a nonstop series of concerts and my mother and I watched everything. I say this now because I sometimes lament at how different it all is now. Certainly, the empire could be blamed; but at some point, perhaps we only have ourselves to blame.

These were my thoughts as I watched my brother’s small orchestra perform with Cecile. This orchestra is made up of the best students at my brother’s school and is called the Pundaquit Virtuosi. They are mostly made up of young people and it’s a testament to what young people can achieve when given the proper training and motivation. Joseph Valdes is an incoming high school senior and was the concertmaster and displayed gifts beyond his years. The soloist of the night was seven-year-old Julian, a fisherman’s son from Zambales who played The Four Seasons as if he had been playing it since he was in his mother’s womb! After the Pundaquit Virtuosi’s performance, another group of young performers took the stage. This time it was the Philippine Youth Symphonic Band. This time it was wind and brass musicians and it was glorious music. How could these young musicians play with such depth? Partly because the grown-ups who train and play with them treat them in the firm belief that depth is in everyone. They say music is the most abstract art and the ability to understand it requires an astuteness of spirit.

And then Cecile came on stage — not just a performer but also a musician. Miriam College exploded into rapture as she played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto Number 2 with precision and playfulness. The most wonderful thing was the rapport she had with the young orchestra. She played with them and they did not merely accompany her; the soaring musicality of all these young people playing music together was certainly a sight and sound for sore eyes and ears! Always, always, when I see young people practicing art I am certain that there is still hope for us all.

And so at the end of the night, there we all were: Cecile, Coke, Tita Charing, my mother, Irene Marcos Araneta (who also figures in many of my childhood memories as she had a brief career as a conductor) and her family and I stood there trying to take stock of all that had passed and all that we had become. There was perhaps much to lament about the past but something right was done. Musicians were able to go abroad to hone their talents. These musicians continue to bring honor to our country and continue to give the young the idea that a life in the arts is not just a dream but a real possibility.