Gilopez Kabayao was a violinist and music educator.
Throughout his long and memorable career as a concert musician, Kabayao had inculcated a desire and a passion for finer music in young and old Filipinos alike, mostly through his performances and his charitable efforts to bring classical music to those who have not had any opportunity to listen to it.
Born a third-generation scion of a landed and musically gifted family in Bacolod in 23 December 1929, most of the young Kabayao’s musical inclinations could be attributed to his maternal grandfather, Gil Lopez, a well-known musician and composer who taught his five daughters how to sing and play the violin, viola, and the piano.
Kabayao enrolled in elementary at Silliman University in 1938, which in turn conferred on the famous musician an outstanding alumnus award in 1966 for his talents and efforts of imparting classical music to the barrios.
Among all of Kabayao’s astoundingly numerous distinctions, perhaps the most influential would be his 2nd place finish at the 1952 International Violin Competition held in Rome.
At 19, he was also the first Filipino to play at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York.
But he soon discovered his calling back home—as it was directly after the trip to Rome that the young musician decided to embark on his lifelong quest to share music with his countrymen.
And so on his return to the Philippines that same year, Kabayao and his sister, Marcelita, started touring the country holding recitals for ordinary citizens already inundated with popular music.
They would ask for a minimal entrance fee and were continually surprised to learn that their concert halls—ranging from cockpits to track-and-field stadiums to basketball courts even to run-down movie houses—would always be filled with people entranced by their consistent virtuoso performances.
Kabayao’s efforts didn’t stop there: in 1957, he started giving phonographs and records to seven elementary schools in provincial barrios.
This was in keeping with his theory that appreciation for fine music is a long process, best started at an early age.
His efforts soon bore fruit, as many of the students who had listened to his donated records soon learned to enjoy classical music—with one student even asking him during a performance when he would play Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, giving Kabayao a rather pleasant and rewarding surprise.
Soon after that, he would make this mission his life’s work. Contrary to what other people might expect from such a person, Kabayao would not display a snobbish regards towards popular music. What grievance he might have against pop music is the lack of alternative, noting how pop music had virtually excluded everything else from the masses.
In his own words, “Pop music comes and goes while the music of the masters lingers on. I am trying to balance the interests of our people. As of now it is 90 percent pop music.”
He had his heart in the right place, but old schisms could be hard to heal.
Still, Kabayao’s efforts were an example on how to start bridging those divides. He earned a Presidential Award of Merit in 1969, and a Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1972.
Gilopez Kabayao died on 12 October 2024 in Iloilo City. (With text from Michael Aaron Gomez for Handulantaw)
