Lara, Gian collaborate onstage anew
ARTISTS Lara Maigue and Gian Magdangal first started their musical collaboration in the pandemic, when they were paired by National Artist Ryan Cayabyab for a duet and they rendered Michael Jackson’s ‘I’ll Be There.’
The duet was filmed on location online and even their rehearsals were online.
“That duet made us realize we could actually sing together and we could do great duets,” said Gian. “That was at the height of the pandemic in 2020.
“When I first met Lara, I know she sings. But when I first heard her sing classical music, I’ve just been a fan. I never thought I could sing with her because she’s in a different mold.
“When I heard her sing pop, with her jazz voice because she has a jazz background, that made me want to sing with her.”
Lara and Gian will collaborate onstage anew in The Greatest Duets: Special Screening, August 30 at the Gateway Cineplex, the biggest one with 400 seats. Last year, the pair presented The Greatest Duets Goes Broadway at Teatrino in Greenhills.
“What makes this new concert interesting is that it will be held in a movie theater, giving the audiences a dose of live movie songs in an actual movie house,” Lara said.
“The first one in November last year was a sold-out show. So we promised a bigger and better show.
“We are so lucky that A-Team is producing our second The Greatest Duets, but this time, our director (Paolo Bustamante) came up with Special Screening, because the theme is movie musicals and songs from the movies in a movie theater.”
The concert will be one night only since Gian is flying the next day to Singapore for the Southeast Asian premiere of the musical, Dear Evan Hansen at Victoria Theater. He will be away until November.
Lara, meanwhile, will also fly to Singapore on September 27 and 28 to perform with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra at the Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore, with Gerard Salonga conducting.
“Our core is musical theater, Broadway and classical,” offered Lara. “The concert will be a fusion of movies that became musicals or musicals that became movies.
“We have same songs from our last concert because they were successful movies. People love ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and the movie was such a hit.”
When they recently uploaded their duet of Phantom of the Opera, the video garnered more than 100,000 views after only one day.
“The song is powerful and people like it, so it’s exciting how we’re going to do the song in a movie theater,” said Lara.
Meanwhile, Lara’s version of Mozart’s aria, Queen of the Night, amassed a staggering 30 million views that even her found it unbelievable.
One of Gian’s favorite duets is A Million Dreams, from The Greatest Showman, where the song was originally rendered as a duet.
The couple is very hands-on with their set list for Special Screening, carefully chosen with their concert director, Paolo Bustamante and musical director Chuck Joson.
“There are so many beautiful duets,” said Gian. “It’s so hard to trim the songs down. When we are lining up the repertoire, that was how The Greatest Series came about.
“We want more people to see the repertoire that we did the last time, so 50 percent of the songs will also be included in this new one. They will still like this new one. There are definitely more songs.”
Some of the beautiful duets that will make it to their set list and close to the artists’ hearts are Moulin Rouge, West Side Story, Les Miserables, tunes from Evergreen, Dirty Dancing, Despicable Me and more.
“There are beautiful lyrics from The Godfather’s theme and we will do that,” granted Lara. “There’s an English and Italian version and we are both doing that.”
Yet, they both insisted there is a “big difference” when they render Broadway tunes and pop songs. “It’s important to reinvent yourself every time,” said Lara. “That keeps you young.”
Concert producer Ogie Alcasid of A-Team Productions is really excited and thrilled for Lara and Gian. “Have you seen them perform? They are sure to bring the house down.
“I think worrying about these herculean projects is part of your life. If you are not going to think big, how big is your God? You have to do things that scare you.”
Ogie added, “This is not the first time that I’ve done things that scared me. I think I’ve done other scary things in the past. That’s fuel for the soul, the fire in your life. That’s unwavering for me.
“To us, our perspective, we are constantly trying in the industry. And it’s very fortunate for us to have someone you can talk to, someone who really sets an example in this fickle industry.
“You can easily get lost and for someone like Gian who have been in the industry for so long, you listen to someone who really knows what he’s doing.”
They are reserving OPM (Original Pilipino Music) love songs for another concert, ideally on Valentine’s Day. “That will be for something special,” said Gian. “Our main goal is to make ‘The Greatest Duets’ thematic every time and highlight OPM.
“Everytime we sing a Broadway song, it’s as if we were given an exam. It’s not like a karaoke song. You can’t just sing a Broadway song. You need to prepare before you can render it. We want to sing more Broadway duets. We want that to be our challenge also.”
Their special guests on August 30 will be Regine Velasquez and Ogie Alcasid, “the greatest duets of the country,” beamed Lara. The couple will be doing their share of movie themes, too.
“They are very, very generous to say yes and give their nod to us,” said Lara. “That’s exciting.”
