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| Acapellago
JC Arizapa, Ron Laderas, Avin
Laderas, Daniel Briones, and Trishia Marie Ilingan
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Contemporary a cappella singing made its presence felt in the
Acapellago,
composed of Trishia Marie Ilingan, Daniel Briones, Avin Laderas JC Arizapa and
Ron Laderas, mesmerized the crowd with their Jeepney themed medley that
included Jeepney both by Kala and
Sponge Cola, Jeepney Love Story by
Yeng Constantino and tucked in the middle of it all was Ryan Cayabyab’s Limang Dipang Tao. The crowd pleasing number
was not only linked thematically, but it also had a story behind it which is
that of a budding love among passengers inside a jeepney. Acapellago had the
audience by the palm of their hands that by the time they did their second number
Yakap Sa Dilim, they practically
sealed their win in my opinion. As the first ever winner of the Akapela Open,
the group received P250,000 and a trophy.
The
1st Runner Up and recipient of P150,000 was the Baguio
based group Pinopella. They had a jam packed presentation that started with the
up tempo Wings by Little Mix. Their second song was Sa May Bintana, composed by Ryan Cayabyab and originally recorded
by James Coronel. They capped it off with a medley of contemporary pop tunes that
included Call Me Maybe, Domino, Roar, Payphone, Just the Way You Are and We are Young.
UP
Diliman based group 1415 was the 2nd Runner Up winning P100,000. Their rendition of the Eraserhead’s Alapaap also won them the Best
Arrangement of an OPM song which was worth an additional P50,000. For their
second number, they did a mashup of Antukin
and Elesi.
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| Acapellago performing at the after party |
The
other competing teams in the competition were D’Trendz from Digos
City Davao ,
Fivibe also from Davao , Overtone
who are based in UST, Tafttonic from De La Salle University, the Xavier
University Glee Club Showstoppers and W/Plesha. The non-winning groups got a
surprise as they were all awarded a consolation prize of P30,000 by One Meralco
Foundation and Meralco Chief Operating Officer Oscar Reyes.
The
judging panel given the difficult task of adjudicating the groups was made up
of choral conductor Jonathan Velasco, Baihana member Krina Cayabyab, and singer/musician
Monet Silvestre. The trio of Banjo Gonzales, Pael Gutierrez and Enzo
Mendoza proved to be capable hosts for finals night. Their onstage antics and
impromptu a cappella singing based on a single word solicited from the audience
brought some hearty laughs from the audience.
The Akapela Open really marked the
resurgence of contemporary a cappella singing here in the country. I am pleased
that competing groups were only allowed to do original arrangements for the
finals night. And the addition of a prize for Best Arrangement of an OPM Song
encouraged all the teams to include a Filipino song in their numbers. But I
noticed that some of the groups’ performances of the Filipino songs were not up
to par compared to the foreign ones. I guess that the local tunes had not been
part of their repertoire and that they only learned the pieces just for the
competition. I expect that this discrepancy between the local and foreign tunes
will be lessened in upcoming editions of the competition. The bar has already
been set and I can expect that many a cappella groups now are already looking
forward to the next edition of the Akapela Open. The future also looks bright
for contemporary a cappella singing here in the Philippines
since one off shoot of the competition was the formation of Philippine Contemporary A cappella Society.
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| Acapellago with Ryan Cayabyab |
The Akapela Open was presented by The Music School of Ryan Cayabyab with the PLDT Smart Foundation and One Meralco
Foundation.
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