Filipino American Symphony Orchestra, APO Hiking Society make beautiful music together

The first and only Filipino American Symphony Orchestra (FASO) outside the Philippines just turned 15 years old and celebrated it by honoring the music of the legendary APO Hiking Society with special guests Jim Paredes and Boboy Garrovillo.

Held at the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall, the FASO show, which was led by Maestro Robert "Bob" Shroder, brought laughter and tears to audiences as they were magically transported from their younger days to memorable years spent in the Philippines. They listened to the wonderful arrangements featuring the APO hits overture (orchestrated by Ria Villena-Osorio), "Mag-Artista Ka" (Jim Paredes, arranged by Naldy Rodriguez and performed by the FASO Vocal Ensemble), "Paano" (Boboy Garrovillo, arranged by Naldy Rodriguez) and "Show Me a Smile" (Danny Javier, arranged by Ria Villena-Osorio), among others.

Paredes and Garrovillo, now both gray-haired but still both boyish and charming, kept the audiences in stitches as they did their "classical" version of their song "Salawikain" (Danny Javier, arranged by Sandra Choi, backup by the FASO Vocal Ensemble) and "Wala Nang Hahanapin Pa" (Jim Paredes, arranged by Naldy Rodriguez, backup by the FASO Vocal Ensemble).

A special tribute to the late APO member Danny Javier, who was 75 when he passed away last year, was also presented as photos and a video clip of Javier were shown.

Paredes and Garrovillo, who were both presented with an Excellence in Music Award by Executive Director Jilly Canizares, President Edith Winterhalter and Vice-President and in-house arranger Louie Ramos, teased the FASO Board, "You had to wait for 15 years?"

Shroder, in an email interview, wrote about the award, "APO is very special to the Filipino community and made a huge impact on our culture through its music and songs."

Photo courtesy of Rick Gavino

For Shroder, the highlights of the show were "the US premiere of Lucio San Pedro's 'Lahing Kayumanggi' which was really the highlight of the concert, followed by the Kundiman which people seldom hear performed, 'Madaling Araw' by Dr. Francisco Santiago and 'Mutya Ng Pasig' by Nicanor Abelardo."

"We were also very proud of Dr. Ramon Geluz excerpt from his opera 'Karim at Jasmin,' the APO Overture orchestrated by Ria Villena-Osorio, 'When I Met You' orchestrated by Sandra Choi and 'Love is for Singing' orchestrated by Louie Ramos."

In-house arranger Ramos told us in an email interview about the inspiration for the amazing arrangements of the APO songs. He said, "Indeed they were amazing. In general, we wanted to leverage the full orchestral sound to execute the APO songs' melodies and harmonies. The orchestra has a very rich and full palette of sounds, and this opened up so many possibilities. We made new orchestral arrangements for these pieces and performed them for the first time, mostly as stand-alone orchestral music without any vocals.

"We asked Jim Paredes if they had any songs that were sort of related to classical music. Jim said that they took one of their songs 'Salawikain' and had it arranged originally for a band instrumentation. They came up with another version still using band instrumentation, which was an irreverent parody of classical music. They quoted a lot of familiar tunes from classical music. We listened to it and said that we could have it arranged to use a full symphonic orchestra and to execute the quotes as it was originally intended. Some of the quotes included 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusik' by Mozart, 'Cat Duet' by Rossini, 'Flight of the Bumble Bee' by Rimsky-Korsakov and the 'William Tell Overture' by Rossini."

We told Ramos that we loved the "tweaking" of the song of Pete Avendano and the APO's "classical" number as their answer to that performance.

Ramos explained the inspiration behind it. He revealed, "We were brainstorming as to how we could render APO's music in an orchestral context. One idea that we came up was 'How about Italian opera?' Bob said that 'Nakapagtataka' would work really well for this.

"So, we reimagined this as an Italian opera and translated it to Italian 'Ti Fa Riflettere.' To make it work, we needed an experienced tenor well-versed in performing Italian opera and Pete Avendano was a natural fit. Bob described this quite well – if Jim Paredes was born and raised in Italy, that is what it would sound like."

Photo courtesy of Rick Gavino

Very noticeable during the show was the big improvement of the youth orchestra which performed "Palladio" (Karl Jenkins), "Dahil Sa Iyo" (Mike Velarde Jr., arranged by Louie Ramos, performed by Combined Youth Ensembles) and "Kabilugan ng Buwan" (Danny Javier, arranged by Louie Ramos, performed by FASO Youth String Ensemble and Junior Orchestra).

Shroder said, "FASO makes sure that our educational program is of high priority. We believe that our youth program will be the future source to continue the success of our goal and mission."

Another highlight in the show was when the kids – Audrey Cymone, Ysabella Loyola, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Shane Selloria and Maya (the puppet) – performed "Love is for Singing" (Jim Paredes, arranged by Louie Ramos).

Ramos explained the use of the puppet in the number. He revealed, "We always open a spot for kids to perform in our concerts. Since this past one was a tribute to the APO Hiking Society, we needed to select a song that we thought would be a good fit for child performers. We ended up selecting 'Love is for Singing.' We announced a call for auditions early this year to start the audition process.

"The concept of using a puppet was not something that was initially planned. When we announced the auditions and applications started pouring in, one of them was Shane Selloria.

"Shane has been part of FASO's Education Program and started participating in our vocal workshops in 2017. He has performed with FASO before as a singing ventriloquist that same year. More recently, he auditioned for 'Lion King' on Broadway in New York and won the lead part for Simba back in 2020 but then COVID hit.

"Unfortunately, when Broadway reopened, he had already grown, and his voice changed. During the pandemic, Shane participated in FASO's mentorship program where we arranged to have an experienced Broadway singer mentor students aspiring to be Broadway singers themselves.

"The concept of using a puppet came about when we came across Shane's application. The concept we had in mind was to have a puppet chat and sing with other children. But Shane still had to prove his worth, he needed to show us that he was still an effective ventriloquist and that he could still sing, given that his voice had already changed. So, he still had to audition his puppet's singing voice and his own natural voice.

"We structured the auditions so that not only could we assess the candidate's singing ability, but we also wanted to see if there was chemistry between them. And this was how this audition process worked."

As for the significance of the 15th anniversary of FASO, Shroder said, "FASO came a long way to reach the 15th year anniversary of success, being an instrument for music and culture for improvement and education of our community, most especially the younger generation."

As for Ramos, he added, "We feel very blessed to have reached this very important milestone. I am particularly proud of the accomplishments of our Education Program. We now have a Junior Orchestra and it has expanded significantly. We still have a way to go, and we look forward to another 15 years of service to the community."

—MGP, GMA Integrated News