August 28, 2022 is when Martin Nievera will celebrate 40 years of performing world-class, audience-integrative music performance at the acoustics-superior sounding Walt Disney Hall Concert.
While dubbed as the Concert King, he was so humble in sharing his deemed “lack of presence’ in his treasured children’s milestones while they were growing up. Any musician who is a world class performer will speak to that ‘perceived lack,’ that even facetime technology couldn’t fill. Martin spoke of that reality in his 4 decades of music performance. It had him teary-eyed, as this writer, “but you are doing that now,” reassuring him that his art took away from his personal life, yet his music keeps many folks alive and warm hearted.
Many were singing with him in the audience as he sang his favorite song:”Say that you love me,” which even his mom wrote a chorus for, in Spanish.
I was astounded by how I felt so connected, crying with him, as he spoke of the special treasures in his life: his father whose footsteps he wanted to follow, singing onstage, his sons Ram, Robin and Santino. He spoke respectfully of these three young men, who are finding their own creative spaces for their respective gifts and talents. We are in for a surprise come August 28.
It will be his 40 years of performing music, that while the pandemic stalled creativity in folks, it catalyzed Martin Nievera to write more songs and give more to others.
Disney Hall will be a fitting venue for this very kind artist who takes any gig as an important gig, singing at a crab house restaurant in Las Vegas to raise funds for the medical expenses for a needy person. Every life matters to Martin, as 70 children who needed heart surgeries and were benefited by another concert he did in the Philippines just recently.
I knew that his warm, open heart that welcomed us all to be in his orbit might have been nurtured by his own generosity of Spirit to others in need. But it is also his heart which magnetizes the “team” of volunteers, who want to share their resources to give him the best respectable venue.
Amongst his producers is our Community’s nurtured impresario, Ted Israel Benito, whose impeccable people skills plus masterful professionalism has earned him more than respectability, but also visibility for our Asian American community to have artists perform at distinguished mainstream venues: Aratani Theater, Ford Amphitheater, Hollywood Bowl, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles.
I couldn’t help but give a shout out after Ruben Nepales brought up this coming August 5 is #goldopen weekend for Jokoy, ushering more visibility for Filipinos.
Martin Nievera was introduced to Jokoy at the Hollywood Bowl by Ted Benito. Martin shared that Jokoy was then promoting his shows, by passing out CDs. Those were the conscientious efforts of our artists then to keep piercing the invisibility veil, as others did too.
Martin Nievera shared his own efforts of putting the Philippines on the map, “not knowing what I was doing, but kept going on talk shows like Jay Leno,” and performing in several stages.
Two journalists who did that for the Filipinos in Hollywood are Ruben and Janet Susan R. Nepales, two officers of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who also gave visibility to being Filipino performing artists in the US.
I suppose this is the privilege of being in the US for over forty years, witnessing the collective, strategic goodness that folks have been doing in building communities.
All these efforts seem to be coalescing as qualitatively luminous and highly visible.
Other presenting producers are Rosie Chua and Jom Jimenez of Spa De Med Beverly Hills of the Geoffrey Jimenez group of companies.
But equally outstanding is this #M4D 40th anniversary concert of Martin Nievera will share 10% of its proceeds to 4 non-profits: Incarnation Church in Glendale, JIR Foundation, Search to Involve Pilipino Americans, Philippine Emergency Disaster Relief Foundation and Apl.de.Ap Foundation International.
Martin Nievera’s 40th anniversary is his story, but it is also our story as Asian Americans who are performing at levels of masterful excellence, with a big heart of including all, because we know what it is like to be invisible. It is about our story of giving, a sterling heart, pure of generosity of spirit to keep others alive.
Martin concluded that he himself has not felt any discomfort of discrimination in 4 decades, and he is just grateful for all the opportunities he has been given, and someone who is proud of being a Filipino – joyful, grateful, giving and who keeps moving forward.
Bottomline – his aloha spirit makes Martin so handsome to this writer, who in a few days, turns 70yo and in a few months, will celebrate her 44 years of marriage.
#loveandkindnesshasmultipliereffect
Opening Performers to the Press Conference were two young Filipinas, winners of WCOPA. The press conference was attended by over 60 folks.
“Amber Venaglia is nine years old and is currently in 4th grade. She does ballet with The Portland Ballet and singing, dancing does theater at Journey Theater Arts. She currently holds a position as a World Ambassadress of Aspire Magazine.
Amber won a three gold medals, three silver medals and won overall in two Division Championships for Solo with Accompaniment and modeling at WCOPA 2022. She also won the “Star of the Year” in the kids category at VocalStar in 2019. Amber was the Portland Fil-Am Young Princess in 2018, the youngest to hold this title, and Miss Kid Universe in 2019.
Amber does Kumon and is working two years above grade level in both math and reading. In addition she has studied computer programming and is one of the youngest game developers. She is a member of Honor Society and plays the piano.
“Katrianne Primrose Maglantay is a nine year old singer. She is the daughter of Ryan Paul Maglantay and Dr. Katherine Maglantay. She started singing at the age of 3. Born in Dubai but proudly Filipina. She is a 4th grader at Hartland International School and loves singing and talking to her friends. Recently, she competed at WCOPA 2022 and made it to the semi-finals and achieved a Silver medal for her vocals.”
P.S. Click on the album title and you can scroll to see all the photos.