A Book On The (He)Art Of Federico Aguilar Alcuaz

When I was a child, I remember having dessert at a lobby as an orchestra performed a repertoire of classical music from the hotel balcony. There was, however, this one stray melody that caught my musical ear, as it hovered distinctly in the air.  It was piercing but muffled, yet the notes precise and accurate, in sync as it accompanied the live orchestration. I craned my head restlessly from my seat just to scan the area and figure out if I was imagining that sound or not.  Then, I saw the answer to my question.  There sat a man on a padded armchair, with eyes closed, smiling to himself as he pressed the small keys of an 80’s-type hand-held Casio organ.

It was only when I read “Federico Aguilar Alcuaz” by Jack Teotico that I realized that the man I watched curiously many years ago, mesmerized in his own music, was the artist himself.

The book generously and proudly displays 54 pages of intense work made of fluid strokes and bold colors that were conceived by a true genius --- products of an illustrious calling that has brought pride to the Philippines and has earned the artist worldwide recognition and prestigious merits.  

With his mighty pen, Teotico paints the romantic in Alcuaz as the man who was taken by the substantial mind of a German beauty named Ute Gisela Schmitz --- the renaissance woman in his life who has rallied behind him as his wife for 49 years now.  The author also clearly illustrates a succinct timeline of the artist: from Alcuaz’s talented musical roots stemming from his family’s creative genes combined with the artist’s childhood passion for sketching and how this fervor blossomed into an illustrious career that was cultivated in different European corners of Spain, Portugal, Germany, Prague, France and his homeland, the Philippines.    
 

The author in Teotico verbally sketches a playful and human side to this distinguished gentleman:  an oblivious hotel guest walking past Alcuaz might be lucky enough to experience peanut sachets whizzing by his face randomly thrown by the renowned artist.  Fortunate ladies discreetly airing their feet can also claim to have the sweetest soles in town as the prankster, otherwise known as Federico Alcuaz, delights in drizzling sugar into their shoes.   

The intense painter very briefly engaged the crowd that welcomed him the night this book was launched at Fully Booked at Bonifacio High Street, but chose immediately to depart from the revelry that celebrated his 55-year career in exchange for some space and quiet unto himself.   

Let the air be his canvass.  Without a brush, he continues to color this world and paints an orchestration of notes with a simple Casio organ.  

Maybe it’s about time the world allows Federico Alcuaz to simply venture back into his inner respite and lose himself in the stream of childhood melodies which unceasingly course through the deepest memories of his heart.  
 

 March 13, 2008, www.ClickTheCity.com