Alfonso “Coke” 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, subsequently leaving to study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. His teachers include 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 numerous concerts all over America, 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 a regular soloist of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra.

He has recorded the Mozart Concerto #5 and the Kasilag Concerto with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, and Saint-Saens Rondo Capriccioso with the Sophia Philharmonic of Bulgaria.In 1990 he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Art (Washington) and Artists Affiliates (New York) to bring culture to the rural areas of America, spending 9 months in Dodge City, Kansas, performing and giving lectures.

Shortly thereafter, 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 100 gifted children from the community who now play violin, viola, cello, draw, paint, or act. In 2002 he wrote Uyayi Ng Dalampasigan, a multi-media play featuring the participants of CASA San Miguel that expresses the value of arts in the community, presented in all the municipal plazas of Zambales through a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Governor of Zambales.Recently he co-founded the Metro Manila Community Orchestra, a community-based orchestra designed or 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 police enforcers, firemen, and engineers.

Mr. Bolipata also served as a Trustee of the Cultural Center of the Philippines for 18 months.Today, Mr. Bolipata is still an active performer, premiering in the Philippines the Bartok Violin Concerto #2 the other year with the Metro Manila Community Orchestra and opening the PPO Series last September with the Brahm’s Concerto. He devotes equal time to working with gifted musicians molding young artists who have won competitions, attended international seminars, and currently members of various professional orchestras.