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NO one
but Western Australia-based Filipino artist Alwin
Reamillo could conceptualize and bring to final
realization such a fantastic project-installation as
Mang Emo + Mag-himo Grand Piano Project. This is a
two-site project, which opened at the Cultural Center of
the Philippines on May 3, with the exhibit of an upright
piano and proceeding to Galleria Duemila with a grand
piano, complete with performances by musicians. With
this project, he has resurrected the legacy of
piano-making which he inherited from his father, Decimo
Zabala Reamillo, or Mang Emo, who founded the
now-defunct Javincello & Company, maker of Wittemberg
Pianos in partnership with his brother Cervantes and
nephew Marciano Reamillo Jaciela. The name Javencillo
was coined from the names of the relatives Javubes,
Jacela and Reamillo. Mr. Reamillo was first employed at
P. E. Domingo and his cousin and business partner
Marciano was with Jacinto Pianos. Tito Miavic, an older
cousin of Mang Emo, was the tuner who later worked with
Elma Pianos. Miavic was related to the Tuason piano
makers of Navotas.
MEGPP
Strungback action
Javincello & Company employed Filipino master craftsmen,
particularly Jaime Pastorfide, Sabas Rabino Jr. and
Tranquilino Tosio Jr., and operated for no less than 36
years, from 1961 to 1997. Beginning as a small piano
repair and restoration shop, the company grew to be a
major manufacturer of upright pianos and the only maker
of grand pianos in the Philippines. Some of the pianos
of the Wittemberg brand are still found in Miriam
College, at the Philamlife auditorium, and in Leyte,
among the Benedictine sisters who pioneered in music
education in the country. Eventually, the company
declined and was forced to close down when the
management fell into less devoted hands.
Needless
to say, the piano industry, because of its highly
technical specialist requirements, has always been small
and limited in the country and today is practically
nonexistent. As in
Europe, the makers of violins and pianos are often small family
workshops of skilled craftsmen who gain recognition for
the refined craft. The industry can only thrive in a
large and noble vision of its role in society and a
genuine love for the art of music. The history of
piano-making can itself be an interesting novelistic
saga of several generations of a family specializing in
the craft, from Mang Emo to Alwin Reamillo and, in turn,
to Alwin’s son, Kaprou Emo, with time exploring the
kinship bonds of three generations.
Although
Reamillo himself does not play the piano (traumatized by
exacting teachers in his childhood), he fondly remembers
weaving in and out of the busy workshop as a young boy,
among his father and his workers. Thus, in 2005, the day
after his father’s birthday and eight years after the
company’s closure, Alwin Reamillo put regret and
nostalgia behind and held his first meeting with the
craftsmen in order to reestablish the company.
Alwin
Reamillo was prepared for the fact that it was not that
easy to begin anew. With his father gone, he had to look
for the former workers because only they held the key to
rebuilding the piano company. He himself was willing to
go through the entire process of learning to build
pianos from their knowledge and experience. A rather sad
fact is brought up at this point, which only goes to
show how our human resources can be wasted in this
country, when people lack or lose the opportunities to
pursue their special talents. For after the closure of
the company to which they devoted the prime of their
lives, the craftsmen, especially the three key
workers—Jaime Pastorfide, Sabas Rabino Jr. and
Tranquilino Tosio Jr.—disbanded and went their separate
ways. It took some time before they were finally found
in different parts of the city. The last of them was
found tending a fishball kiosk in a depressed area. It
was a pathetic sight to see the man gifted with such
special technical skills in the science and art of
piano-making wasting his talent, time and energy in
vending street food.
When
they finally opened the workshop, a miasma of mold, dust
and decay met them from the four dark corners of the
room where watching ghosts seemed to linger. The
workshop remained as it was when its doors were closed
and there was no subsequent effort to salvage what
materials were still usable. Left to the damp and rot of
eight years, parts of pianos were strewn everywhere and
hordes of white ants had eaten into them leaving only
their ruined shells. But after careful sifting, Alwin
Reamillo, who, as an artist, believes in the use of
found and recyclable materials, was able to gather a
pile of usable materials from the debris, including cast
iron molds, patterns of piano parts, contoured pieces of
wood and assorted boxes of ivory keys.
It was a
sheer miracle of will that the men were able to make the
place workable again, with the light from the big main
door flooding the room. Reason had returned to it and
one could perceive the relationship of things to each
other. One never realized how the making of pianos could
entail so many heavy machines for various functions.
Besides the keyboard which had its own different
mechanisms, there was a heavy-shaped structural
component molded in metal which they had ordered in a
factory in Novaliches. Then there was the finely
contoured sounding board, which is said to be the soul
of the piano that could sensitively absorb all the
emotional nuances of the pianist. This special part had
to be made of fine spruce wood, which they ordered from
abroad to obtain the quality of tone desired. On the
surface, it has the light-toned wood of palo china but
is much more dense and compact.
This is
the biggest installation project of Alwin Reamillo so
far, but like his other works, it thrives on community
values, of democratic and common participation in which
everyone contributes his best to the enhancement of
community life. This is one of the lessons that Mang Emo
imparted, being a brother and fellow to his coworkers.
Another
theme that reappears in his work is one of migration.
Living in Australia, Reamillo strives to create deep and
lasting relationships between the Philippines and
Australia by this project, which will have its component
in
Australia
and its art. For many years now, he has grappled with
the intertwined theme of colonization, migration and the
Filipino diaspora which in his work is signified by a
cluster of icons, including crustaceans that travel in
beaches around the world, and Captain Cook, the
navigator and explorer of Down Under. Reamillo has done
several paintings in connection with the piano project.
One entrancing work is Apparition of a Whalecook (Venus
in Transit), which shows a caracoa serpent-like boat of
early times carrying a load of migrants before the
presence of Venus and Captain Cook, and thus the global
journey continues. But the important thing is to
establish linkages and relationships that will widen our
perspectives and our understanding of fellow humans in
the world. |
