The Melody of Violin Hero

Playing her violin is indeed relaxing to hear the melody it creates. A particular string instrument has made a special place in her heart.

The 23-year-old talented Dominique Casacop possesses an extraordinary passion for music.

Dominique is a violinist and an honorable mention graduate of De La Salle University-Manila, with a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems degree.

Photo by Dominique Casacop

She was a scholar and a member of the Lasallian Youth Orchestra. During her entire four years studying her course, this is the only organization she had.

She is currently working as a website creator with international clients and offers and teaches violin lessons.

Aside from that, she is also a junior city councilor at the City of Santa Rosa, Laguna.

According to Dominique, the violinist discovered her talent when she was only 11 years old. During the interview, we asked who motivated her to play the violin.

She replied, "My parents motivate me to learn and play the violin. My father bought the instrument and made me realize that I have this special talent.”

The first time she held her violin, she learned basic song compositions such as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. After that, her parents decided to enroll her in violin lessons.

Through learning and playing the violin, many opportunities opened up for her as she grew older, especially when the local noon TV Show, Eat Bulaga had a competition segment for young musicians titled Music Hero.

Despite her shy type personality, she took the courage to show her incredible talent on the longest-running noontime show and national television.

However, it was not easy for her to participate in the competition.

Apart from the fact that her other competitors were superb, she was also a senior year at college at that time, and the stress and pressures she went through were much heavier.

Her trajectory as one of the competitors bore fruit. She eventually got a title as the grand winner of Violin Hero using her winning piece ‘Phantom of the Opera’ by Lindsay Stirling.

In Eat Bulaga, Dominique was the one who was given a contract. In her violin hero journey, their band was able to publish songs such as Walang Papalit with 25.4 million views on YouTube, and their single “Kalawakan” song which became a trend in 2021 with currently 8.9 million views.

On the other hand, when her career started as a violin hero even without the band, she had solo guests and mall shows due to the increasing demand for her performances.

Way back in 2018, she was one of the few who were able to represent our country with her violin at Genfest at the World Trade Center with people from different countries.

Her journey in Eat Bulaga as a violin hero will always be a memorable and a unique experience, a once-in-a-lifetime experience that is extraordinary.

“This journey is a journey of formation as an artist and a performer. It is also a journey of learning new skills in playing my craft," she said.

She was trained under pressure and expected to do musical arrangements of work with her co-bandmates.

Dominique will be grateful to Eat Bulaga for what has become of me today.

Moreover, she considers herself versatile to play in the various genres as her strength as a violinist. On the other hand, a fun fact about this bright musician, she has a YouTube channel with 4.8k subscribers and 17k followers on her Facebook account, these two platforms are where she posts her violin song covers.

"It has already been my passion to perform and play the violin since I was a kid. I always want to do violin covers and most of these are songs that I love. During this pandemic, I was able to have the time to do various song covers from love songs, jazz, pop, and inspirational songs. I want to share my talent to inspire others, especially during this time. We experience a lot of difficulties and challenges," she added.

The majority of Dominique’s existence revolves around music and she can’t imagine what she is today without the violin.

"Violin has become part of my life. I can never imagine myself without my violin. This instrument has inspired me to become what I am today not only that I acquire the skills of playing it but it instills in me the values of discipline, love for music, perseverance and it has been a medium of expressing my inner self," she said.

"I consider it a success when my performances inspire the audience, and when I see in my students' passion during violin lessons their eagerness to learn and be part of their journey as violinists in reaching their dreams," she added.

We seeked advice and college tips from her that could help us in our college journey before we finally decide to finish our moments with her.

"College life is very different, you will struggle and experience the pressure of heavy workloads. Always focus on your goal. Finish your tasks ahead of time. Getting things done requires good time management. Put love in everything you do and persevere even when there are times you already want to give up. Always pray and remember that God has great plans for you,” she quoted.