Himig ng Bayan finals June 27

MANILA, Philippines - It’s all systems go for the music festival, Himig ng Bayan tomorrow, June 27 at Dumaguete City.

The Dawn will perform with the contestants to kick off the competition. Finalists from the guitar solo and vocals category perform right after. The evening will be capped by a performance from Bamboo.

Himig ng Bayan judges chose six contestants who have shown outstanding potentials in their respective categories.

The Guitar Solo category brought in several young musicians who knew their way with the instrument. One is Reuben Rhyll Chris Garbilao (guitarhyll), who won over the audience when he performed at the Live Auditions all the way from Butuan. The second of the Guitar Solo finalists is Cesar Ian Mauricio (bandidio), whose acoustic rendition of Isaac Albeniz’s Asturias set him apart from the electric guitar-using majority. Rounding up the group is Kitkat Delleva (kitkatdelleva), the 13-year-old who rocked his Technical Difficulties cover.

Several entries were sent for the Vocals Solo category. The first finalist is Aileen Abiera (aicansing), who captivated the Live Audition audience with her rendition of Mariah Carey’s Forever.  Second is Abby Vicente (abby_vicente), the young singer from Cavite whose voice is reminiscent of the great soul singers. Eugene Soyosa (eugenesoyosamusic) hit the right notes in the entries he sent in, including a version of Beyoncé’s hit Halo.

As host city, Dumaguete is allowed a wildcard entry per category and the city did not disappoint in providing their most talented young musicians. For guitars, Kim Ventusa (lawit) wows with his take on jazz piece Donna Lee by Charlie Parker. As for the Vocals solo contestant, Jayson Guinit (HNBjayson) mixes up by creating his own version of Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours.