Supporting Lea Salonga

Citybest Chinese Restaurant supports the latest offering of our very own international singer-actress Lea Salonga for her major concert this year billed "Lea Salonga: Your Songs" slated for Dec. 11 and 12, 8 p.m. at the PICC Plenary Hall. The concert will feature FilharmoniKa and Gerard Salonga as musical director. Bobby Garcia directs. The concert’s repertoire is open for suggestions and requests from the public until Sept. 30 by simply logging on to LEAyoursongs.com and sending in your choices either by e-mail or video. Shown during the press conference held at Citybest on Tomas Morato, Quezon City, is Lea Salonga with Aileen Go, owner of Citybest. Go also gifted Lea with a gift pack from Sisters’ Napkins, manufactured and distributed by MegaSoft Hygiene, which is owned by Go and her husband Emilio.

Indie-pop band múm supports NGO Refugees United

Until Sept. 21, Refugees United, an NGO working to establish a global, anonymous tracing network between refugee families separated, will receive 10 percent of all sales of acclaimed band múm’s new record Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know through the social music marketplace gogoyoko.com.

David Troensegaard from Refugees United says, "We’re very pleased with this unusual fundraising possibility, which sheds light on our quest to further family-finding knowledge and technology to some of the least fortunate among us: Refugees. A new possibility for a new non-profit."

Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know, the fifth full-length studio album by the Icelandic group múm, will be released exclusively on gogoyoko.com, before the physical release via Morr Music in Europe and Euphone in the US.

Múm was formed in 1997 and was originally a duo of Gunnar Örn Tynes and Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason, but has in its 12 years of existence expanded and contracted in an irregular pulse, like a jittery mammalian heart. They have recorded and released five studio albums and an endless catalog of smaller releases and side projects off the beaten track. www.mum.is

Refugees United was formed in 2005 to provide refugees who have lost contact with loved ones during escape from conflict with a global, online and anonymous network to reconnect. The organization works with NGOs and private corporations worldwide in pursuit of its mission. www.refunite.org

Gogoyoko is a social music marketplace, where you can buy your music directly from the artists. gogoyoko provides signed and unsigned artists with the opportunity to access the worldwide music market without having to go through a middleman.

Kapampangan mothers at CCP

After the well-applauded and highly talked about launching show and a repeat performance of "IMA, a Kapampangan musical," due to insistent public demand, Teatro Ima at Arti, or MaARTI. will once again show the spectacular musical, this time at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

A first in the history of the Philippines that a province’s most influential women step out of their companies and homes to stand up into the world of theater through MaARTI. This musical is the Kapampangan women’s tribute to the late President Cory Aquino as a mother.

MaARTI is composed of women aged 50 years old and above, whom despite their age and occupation, took courage to prove that there is nothing "too late" to fulfill their dreams. Acting on stage with the direction of the man behind the sensational success of Arti Sta. Rita, Andy Alviz, an alumnus of Miss Saigon Asia, script by Randy de Rosario and Recy Pineda as musical director, their aim is beyond their liberation from closet-kept dreams and inspire and help free hundreds of agonizing women from suffering and distress in their lives by rendering an entertainment of different kind.

According to Bondi Dino, actress and treasurer of Teatru iMaarti, "proceeds for this celebrated launch shall fund MaARTI’s foundation that will bring new hope to women who have succumbed to abuse and exploitation, arts and culture group in the region, and spiritual upliftment."

Mood-enhancing music from Lenka

You must have heard these lyrics "I’m just a little bit caught in the middle. Life is a maze and love is a riddle" and wondered what song it was and which singer it came from. Yes, the title is The Show and the girl with the gentle voice is Australian singer Lenka. It is the lead single from her self-titled debut album.

In Sydney, Lenka went on to become a teen actress who trained with Cate Blanchett, thereafter landing leading roles on stage, television and in indie films, a self-described "punk-ass art school student" and vocalist/keyboardist for acclaimed indie electronic/ambient outfit Decoder Ring. Now she has flung herself into two new worlds simultaneously: she’s moved to California and become a solo artist. But no matter where she ventures, those early memories follow. Others may struggle to get in touch with their inner child; Lenka never lost hers.

"It’s a mood-enhancer," she says of her record and mood enhancing is something she’s a bit of an expert at, having provided the "strangely haunting" (Rolling Stone) vocals for Decoder Ring’s evocative soundscapes over the course of two albums. "I don’t like it when people are depressed. I want to cheer them up," she says, giving Trouble a swift kick in the ass.

Although the album is rife with broken romances (Wrote Me Out), self-loathing (Anything I’m Not), difficult relationships (Dangerous & Sweet) and long distance longing (Skipalong), it is nevertheless uplifting.

Lenka is now out in CDs under Sony Music.