Amici Forever: Friends in Tune

When BMG Records (Pilipinas), Inc. big boss Rudy Tee asked if I wanted to fly to Singapore on my day-off and stay overnight for an interview with a new group called Amici Forever, touted as "The World’s First Opera Band" and listen to a showcase of eight songs from the group’s first album, simply called The Opera Band, I answered, "Oh, but I’m not an opera buff," opera being a musical genre that, sorry to admit it, I have no patience listening to.

"But Amici Forever is not your usual opera band," insisted Rudy, slowly but surely making me nod. "The quintet combines contemporary pop and traditional opera. You’ll like it!"

So, with Andrea Bocelli on my mind, having watched his concert mesmerized at the Big Dome just a week earlier, I flew to Singapore last Monday, May 10, spent barely 16 hours there and came back humming Amici Forever songs especially the group’s stirring rendition of Senza Catene (Unchained Melody, "an Italian interpretation of a timeless song," according to the press kit), throughout the smooth three-hour Singapore Airlines flight.

I called up Rudy Tee as soon as I arrived and told him, "You’re right. Now, I’m turning into an opera buff – the Amici Forever kind of opera."

In the showcase for the Asian media at the Singapore Repertory Theater, our group (BMG’s Narciso Chan, Inquirer’s Tim Yap and Odyssey Records lady boss Tess Fonacier) sat enthralled for more than 30 minutes as the quintet sang one song after another, Nessum Dorma (Puccini’s powerful aria from the opera Turandot) and Adeste Fidelis (O Come All Ye Faithful) among them, doing opera with a pop flavor, matching their stunning looks with their amazing voices.

By coincidence, that same night, Bocelli was performing also in Singapore, the last leg of his Asian tour that started in Manila and continued in Hong Kong, and "Bocelli on my mind" must have enhanced my appreciation of this new band’s music.

A music critic in the London newspaper Daily Star was right: "The next big thing is singing sensation Amici Forever. They have already seduced audiences. While it may be for novelty at first, we are sure this lot are such a class act that major success won’t be too far behind."

I encourage you to buy a copy of The Opera Band CD (released by BMG Records Pilipinas, Inc.) and see for yourselves how you, too, can learn to love opera in one sitting.

First, meet the quintet:

• Jo Appleby (Soprano). Born in Blackpool, England. Completed vocal training at the Royal Northern College in Music where she graduated with honors. Sponsored by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, she made her debut at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Has performed some of the leading operatic roles including Despina in Cosi Fan Tutti, Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito, Jano Jenufa and First Soprano in James Macmillan’s Vusqueda. Has also performed with the Carl Rosa Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

• Tsakane Valentine (Mezzo Soprano). Born in Pretoria, South Africa. Has been singing African music in choirs since childhood. Graduated in music in Pretoria State University and trained further at Pretoria Technikon, one of South Africa’s only two opera schools. Performed as soloist at a number of high-profile events before world leaders, including Nelson Mandela and German Chancellor Schroder. Did the role of Maria in Bernstein’s West Side Story at the prestigious Spier Opera Festival in Cape Town before moving to London.

• Geoff Sewell (Tenor, leader and organizer of the group, with his wife Simone Lanham as the group’s manager). Grew up in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. Dropped his job as chartered accountant at Victoria University of Wellington and at a merchant bank and studied music at the prestigious Boston Conservatory. Established a successful entertainment company in London with which he performed as operatic tenor before an audience of royalty that included Sir Elton John and Sir Tim Rice. Other performances: Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and a special unique performance of the New Zealand National Anthem at the July 2002 Commonwealth Games.

• David Habbin (Tenor). Born near Bournemouth, England. Performed with rock bands as a teener. Studied music and acting at Mountview Drama Scool in London. Performed at London’s West End (Les Miserables, West Side Story, etc.). Graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music and joined the prestigious Glyndebourne Festival Opera Company. Has done high-profile roles such as Alfredo in La Traviata, Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly, Alfred in Die Fledermaus and Ernesto in Don Pasquale.

• Nick Garrett (Bass Baritone). Born in London. Earned a degree from Trinity College of Music and won the Wolfson Foundation Award for voice. Joined the world-famous Swingle Singers. Sung as soloist over 30 roles at some of the world’s great opera houses (Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North and Opera National de Paris). He also composes songs.

Here are excerpts from my Conversation with the quintet:

So why did you call your group Amici Forever?

Jo: Amici is the Italian word for friend.

Geoff: We’ve been together for two years now. In the early days, a lot of people likened us to the TV show Friends. We sang a lot in Italian as well, so we told ourselves, "Why don’t we call our group Amici?"

Tsakane: After all, we’re friends. Friends forever. Amici Forever.

Nick: Nice name, isn’t it?

David: We’ve been around for a long time and we promise to stick together for a longer time – forever.

Didn’t you consider any other name?

Geoff: Oh, we did! A lot of names. Some are too horrible to mention.

Such as...

Jo: ...such as Single L and Passion.

Does your being friends make the group more cohesive?

Tsakane: It does. It helps a lot.

Geoff: We became even closer friends after we formed Amici Forever.

Jo: And that’s when we got to know each other better.

Tsakane is from South Africa, Geoff from New Zealand and the rest are from England. Did you have to make some adjustments as far as maybe cultural differences were concerned?

Nick: The first time we got together as a group we did a lot of photo shoots. And we just had a great time together. We enjoyed each other’s company so much that we didn’t notice what you referred to as "cultural differences."

David: We’ve been fine-tuning our friendship since then.

You had your individual careers. What made you decide to group together?

Jo: We sound even better together, don’t we?

Why five? Why not four or six or even more?

Tsakane: Five works really well vocally.

Nick: Five is a magic number.

Geoff: Four is not enough.

David: Six is too many.

Jo: Five is just right.

A critic described your group as a novelty. How do you think your kind of group will fit into the current music scene?

Geoff: We’d like to call ourselves "novel" rather than a "novelty." We’re a group singing this kind of popularized opera and classical music.

Nick: "Novelty" implies that it’s gonna be short-lived and we don’t intend to be...short-lived.

Jo: I believe that we have the substance behind what we do.

You blend contemporary pop and traditional opera, so you can attract fans from both sides of the musical fence.

Jo: I think that’s what’s happening now.

Geoff: I think each genre has its specific audience, rather than taking from each other’s audiences. Fans of contemporary pop might be yearning for something else, maybe for traditional opera, and vice-versa.

How did you choose the selections on your album?

Jo: There were lots of ideas from a lot of people, from us and from our friends and from the BMG people.

Tsakane: What it really boiled down to was what songs best suited our voices.

Do you agree most of the time or disagree most of the time?

David: No, yes; no, yes; no, yes.

Jo: At the end of the day, we come to a democratic agreement.

Nick: It’s like a marriage among five people. You fall out occasionally but you’re bound together by a vow.

At what age did you realize that you could sing?

Jo: I was only about 12 or 13. I always sang in school like everybody did. When I was 13, somebody told me, "You have a nice voice; you should take singing lessons." So I did. I took up music in college.

Tsakane: Since I was a child back in South Africa. As I grew up, I began to discover opera.

Geoff: I started singing in church when I was six. They called me the boy soprano and I had a soprano voice until I was 18.

David: I developed a love for pop music quite naturally, as far back as I can remember. I didn’t think I was gifted as a singer but I didn’t want to do anything else so I joined a band. From there, I had singing lessons and I discovered opera.

Nick: I was a boy in school. I always knew that I loved music, so I thought of becoming a composer.

You didn’t dream to be in any other field but music?

Jo: I wanted to be a ballerina until I realized that I wasn’t good enough to be one.

Tsakane: When I was six or seven, I wanted to be an astronaut.

Geoff: I wanted to be a tennis player. But I met an accident when I was 17. So, goodbye, tennis! I also wanted to be an accountant.

David: I’ve always wanted to be in music, not anywhere else.

Nick: I wanted to be a policeman.

(To David) I understand you did a lot of musicals (one of them Les Miserables) in London’s West End. There are some Filipino talents there. Have you by any chance performed with any of them?

David: Yeah, that’s true! I know that there are a lot of Filipino actors in West End. Their popularity has been helped by musicals like Miss Saigon. Filipino girls like Lea Salonga did very well in that musical.

Did you perform with Lea in any musical?

David: I did, in Les Miserables (where Lea played Eponine).

Any other Filipino actors/actresses you have performed with?

David: Not too many because there were not a lot of Filipinos in Les Miserables at that time. I was in West Side Story and there wasn’t any Filipino in the cast at that time. I wished I did Miss Saigon or Lion King (where there are Filipinos in the cast).

And what can you say about Filipino actors/actresses?

David: They’re very beautiful. Like Lea. She was a very driven and ambitious girl, always early. Very focused.

Would you remember the first song that you ever sang?

Jo: It was called Daisy, Daisy. But the first song I ever sang for an audience was Somewhere Over The Rainbow (from Wizard of Oz).

Tsakane: It was an African song...It was so long ago that I forgot what its title was. Much later, I sang How Beautiful Let It Be (from Messiah) in front of an audience during a competition.

Geoff: Silent Night. In church. I was six and I had to learn the German version.

David: Do you remember that version of I Was Born Under a Wandering Star by Lee Marvin (from the musical Paint Your Wagon)? I used to sing that. I was four or five then.

Nick: At five, I sang I Had Two Diamonds in a kindergarten play. There’s a line in it that goes: Wind through the olive trees, softly did blow, round Little Bethlehem long, long ago.

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