Akapela Open 2016: Celebrating four years of Filipino musical artistry

Filipinos are known all over the world for their musical abilities. Blessed with unbelievable vocal range, Filipinos are recognized to be great singers, no matter where they are. Not only that, their originality and ingenuity in creating beats, melodies and tempos are seen as unique.

This is shown in how contemporary a cappella singing has evolved in the Philippines through the years, how its practitioners have formed their own special community that grew as time passed by. These were embodied in the fourth edition of the Akapela Open competition.

Organized by the PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.)-Smart Foundation (PSF), One Meralco Foundation (OMF), and the Music School of Ryan Cayabyab, with the generous support of PLDT Home, Metro Pacific Investments Corp., and Philex Mining Corp., Akapela Open 2016 marked a new chapter that remembered the humble beginnings of a cappella while basking in the glory brought by a growing community of musicians.

This year’s Akapela Open was different from previous editions, not only because its two prominent a cappella leaders—2014 Akapela Open champion Pinopela, and 2013 and 2015 Akapela Open winner Acapellago— did not compete this year, but also because it welcomed a new set of finalists, including a group from South Korea, from which the new champion was chosen.

Ten finalists took the stage singing this year’s required competition piece—an original Filipino Christmas song— and a pop song with original arrangement. The finalists impressed the audience as they poured their hearts out singing Christmas tunes, while adding fresh beats to contemporary songs that included Maroon 5’s “One More Night”.

It was an interesting mix of finalists, as five of the 10 groups are made up of males, and the competition itself welcomed minor participants.

One of the finalists, South Korean a capella group Doo Wop Sounds wowed the crowd with its rendition of Ariel Rivera’s “Sana Ngayong Pasko”. One of its members thanked the audience, as well as the event organizers, for welcoming foreign participants to the local a capella scene.

Hailed as this year’s Akapela Open champion and winner of the best-arrangement prize, the all-male Astrafellas sang a Backstreet Boys medley, pumping up the crowd to cheer and scream their hearts out, and ended by singing its version of One Direction’s “Story of My Life”.

“The PLDT-Smart Foundation has been supportive of the growing community of the music industry. Filipinos, through their artistry, continue to spark remarkable changes in the music scene,” PSF President Esther Santos said.

Joining Astrafellas and Doo Wop Sounds to round out this year’s finalists were first runner-up ConChords, Ten Thousand, MVIBE, GVABS, PhiSix, Street Voice, Fratoneity, and Callafellas.