Inner Wheel presents Celebration!
“A plethora of happy as well as dramatic songs.”
That’s how director Freddie Santos describes Celebration!, the concert Inner Wheel Club of Manila is mounting at the Grand Ballroom of Okada Hotel at the Manila Bay Area on Saturday, Jan. 20, at 7 p.m. to mark its 69th founding anniversary. Freddie directs
Celebration! which features The Angelos, the classical-pop tenor multi-awarded group now elevated to the Aliw Awards Hall of Fame. Media has tagged The Angelos as Il Divo, after the multinational classical crossover male quartet, million-crowd drawer originating from the United Kingdom.
The concert also features Cris Villonco, Shiela Valderrama-Martinez and Carla Guevara-Laforteza, dubbed as The Leading Ladies.
“It’s a celebration, so, at first, I thought we should have happy songs,” Freddie says. “But since they have been singing Broadway, you know, theater songs, the ladies wanted to include dramatic songs in our repertoire. So, the concert will have various songs that would move different feelings. For life is, indeed, a mixture of happy-sad moments. Like, some say 2017 was a difficult year. So, we are putting up a concert that will make the audience feel hopeful for 2018.” He has vivid comments about The Leading Ladies: Cris: “Feisty and very direct in her approach…” Shiela: “Charming softness inside, but steel outside…”
Carla: “She’s my godchild…shamelessly extroverted, brings out all her best in her every performance.”
As for The Angelos — its members have different singing techniques: “You can spot them individually as the group is singing, yet at the same time, you hear just one, single, pleasant harmony.”
The Angelos is composed of PJ Gonzales, Johan Enriquez, Paul Jacob Enriquez, Gerard Bayot, with the powerful lead of George Tagle, who is more than giving for Celebration!.
Freddie and Beth Tagle, president of Inner Wheel Club of Manila, have gone a long way. “More than three decades!” says Freddie. “I collect art pieces and in one of my journeys, I happened to pass by this place which has a sculpture of a nude woman at its front door. I was like, ‘Scandalous! Ang tapang, ang kapal ng mga taong
ito,’” he says in jest. Freddie knocked on the door of the house-cumart studio of Beth. And that started his partnership with Beth for many a projects not simply for profit, but more important, to uplift arts and culture, mostly for a worthy cause — such as the Inner Wheel cause.
The Inner Wheel Club of Manila (IWCM) was organized in March 1949 by Ambassador Trining Legarda. Beth says IWCM is mounting the
Celebration! concert to raise funds for its various projects foremost of which are sustainable feeding program, livelihood skills training and medical missions for indigents. IWCM is also renovating its age-old house on Taft Avenue in Manila.