Pinoy Pride: Charice Pempengco

Charice Pempengco, or simply Charice to her fans, is a Filipino singer and actress who rose to popularity through Youtube. She is currently the most internationally hot shot singer from the Philippines.

She started her career almost like Regine Velasquez, joining small singing competitions all over the country at a tender age. In 2005, Charice joined Little Big Star, a talent show in the Philippines loosely patterned after American Idol. Eliminated after her first performance, she was called back as a wildcard contender and eventually became one of the finalists. Although she was a consistent top scorer in the final rounds, she did not win the title in the finale and only placed third. (Wikipedia)

Charice Pempengco in The Ellen Degeneres Show


Unlike Regine, her big break happened because of a fan and with the help of the internet. Someone under the username FalseVoice uploaded her video performances in Youtube - it received over 13 million hits. Through her international performance videos, Ellen DeGeneres found her and made an on-air invitation to guest her on The Ellen Degeneres show. Pempengco also appeared on the May 12 edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show in an episode entitled the "World's Smartest Kids", where she performed Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing.^[19] After the show, Oprah Winfrey contacted David Foster to see what the legendary music producer could do for Pempengco. David Foster liked her and held several well-recieved performances with her. In one of those concerts, Charice met Andrea Bocelli, her idol. Bocelli expressed his interest in performing a duet with her. Aside from her solo performance in Bocelli's birthday concert "The Cinema Tribute", she also sang a duet of "The Prayer" with the famous tenor in front of more than 8,000 people.

 Charice in GLEE


In an ABC News interview, David Foster mentioned that she has the ability to mimic other people's voices, which, according to him, is a characteristic of good singers. In a separate interview, Josh Groban stated that Charice's voice is one of the most beautiful voices he has heard in a long time. The New York Post once called her a vocal prodigy for being able to sing 'big songs' even at her tender age. Ryan Murphy, the executive music producer of the hit US television series Glee, said, "When that girl opens her mouth, angels fly out."

PinoyTunes features Charice in this week's episode:

For more information about Charice, check out her website: http://www.charicemusic.com/

Source: Wikipedia