Teenage star Charice Pempengco was one of the many performers who appeared at a concert organized by David Foster on Saturday, May 9.
The 17-year-old joined Cher, Clay Aiken, Donny Osmond, Brian McKnight and Paul Anka at the David Foster & Friends concert at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas to raise money for the David Foster Foundation, an organization established by the legendary composer and music producer in 1986 to provide financial and emotional help to the families of children needing organ transplants.
During the show, Charice thanked Foster and Oprah Winfrey for their help in her career.
“I would like to mention these people who are very special in my life,“ she said. “First, he is my fan, my producer, my mentor. He taught me a lot of things and of course he is my hero — David Foster. And of course I want to thank Oprah for believing in my dreams and of course believing in me. Thank you so much. I love you both.“
Foster has a long history of charitable efforts to help children. In 1997 he was honored with the United States Children’s Choice Award for his work supporting research into children’s cancer, leukemia, and AIDS.
David Foster and Friends - Mandalay Bay 5/9/09 videos from YouTube:
David Foster is the first to recognize last year’s “David Foster & Friends” will be hard to top. That was a one-of-a-kind event, with nearly a dozen guest singers filmed for a DVD (”Hit Man”) and PBS pledge drives.
It’s impossible to have those big names “go with me every time I want to do this,” the hit-making record producer points out. However, Saturday’s encore at Mandalay Bay finds him trying to build his own name into a brand, one “people would want to come and see no matter who my friends are.”
“In a perfect world, as the record business shrinks and I don’t want to retire, I think this might be a good Round Three for me to perform,” Foster says. “I’m just hoping my music will be the glue, along with my personality and my way of presenting it.”
It’s more than wishful thinking if you saw last year’s concert. And not just because this time, the TV cameras will be gone, and with them the irritating down time and do-overs that stretched the event beyond the three-hour mark.
Of all the star power last year, the big surprise of the night was an unknown 16-year-old Filipina named Charice, belting out “I Will Always Love You.”
On Saturday, Charice returns as a billed performer poised for stardom. Last week, she and Foster visited “The Oprah Winfrey Show” for the anointment of her debut single, “Note to God.” (The show airs May 18, the day the single will be released to digital outlets.)
Foster hopes this year’s audience will take the leap of faith with him and come along for the next new singer he introduces along with the billed stars: Earth, Wind & Fire singer Philip Bailey, Brian McKnight, Peter Cincotti and Heather Headley.
“I do have a little surprise that’s not announced,” he also teases.
Las Vegas audiences have a head start on the trust factor if they attended any installment of the Andre Agassi “Grand Slam for Children” that Foster spearheaded for years. Patrons of those benefits got early looks at Josh Groban, Michael Buble and Charlotte Church, performing alongside the likes of Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Celine Dion.
“I sort of discovered late in my life that I do have a talent for finding talent,”“I sort of discovered late in my life that I do have a talent for finding talent,” Foster says, before amending that to say, “They usually find me.”
He also has learned, “You can win a crowd over more with an unknown, if it’s presented right and if they kill.”
Agassi supporters also watched Foster issue random challenges to audience members to come up and sing, a stunt he plans to repeat on Saturday.
“There’s always somebody who wants to be a star. That person usually wins bigger than any A-list celebrity you have,” he says. “If they have the balls to get up there, chances are they’re either really good or really bad. And both work.”
Foster’s star began to emerge when he co-wrote and produced the 1982 Chicago hit “Hard To Say I’m Sorry.” For two decades, he dominated the pop charts with hits such as Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart” and Celine Dion’s “To Love You More.”
Now the Top 40 is dominated by hip-hop, which Foster respects, but knows is not his game. “I just clearly don’t know how to make that kind of music,” he says. “By some stretch, I should just be out to pasture.”
But he also notes, “Pop stands for popular, and I still make popular music. … Everybody’s trying to be hip, and yet you’ve got this show ‘American Idol,’ and what do they do all year to get 37 million people to watch? They do Barry Manilow songs. They do Burt Bacharach. They do David Foster songs.
“People don’t leave the music business. The music business leaves them. And I don’t want to be one of those guys,” he says. “I’m happy for everyone that’s doing it. I just want my little slice to stay where it is, and I’m happy.”
David Foster & Friends Live In Concert
Mandalay Bay Resort
Las Vegas, NV
Sat, May 9, 2009 08:00 PM
Back by popular demand, a concert celebration featuring music’s premier songwriter and producer David Foster will take place Saturday, May 9 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. The event will pay tribute to the 15-time Grammy winner and will feature Clay Aiken, Philip Bailey from the chart-topping band Earth, Wind & Fire, Brian McKnight, Peter Cincotti and Oprah Winfrey’s protégé, Charice. Foster also will perform some of the hits he has written or produced during his 40-year musical career. The event is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m.
“HITMAN: David Foster and Friends” CD/DVD will be released on November 11, 2008 by Warner Bros.
The event was the star-studded David Foster & Friends concert held Friday, May 23 at the Mandalay Bay Event Center. It was an almost fourhour musical extravaganza that featured tour de force performances from Foster’s friends such as Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, Michael Buble, Katharine McPhee, Charice, Renee Olstead, Peter Cetera, Brian McKnight, Babyface, and Boz Scaggs.
Here’s the CD/DVD track listing:
Disc 1:
1. Love Theme From St. Elmo’s Fire (Kenny G.)
2. Home (Michael Buble and Blake Shelton)
3. I Have Nothing/I Will Always Love You (Charice)
4. Bridge Over Troubled Water (Josh Groban and Brian McKnight)
5. Somewhere (Katharine McPhee)
6. Look What You’ve Done To Me (Boz Skaggs)
7. Wildflower (Blake Shelton)
8. Hard To Say I’m Sorry/You’re The Inspiration/Glory Of Love (Peter Cetera)
9. The Prayer (Andrea Bocelli and Katharine McPhee)
DVD content:
Act I
1. Andre Agassi Intro
2. St Elmo’s Love Theme (Kenny G.)
3. Can’t Help Falling In Love (David Foster)
4. Beauty/Man In Motion (Michael Johns)
5. Mornin’/After The Love Has Gone (Brian McKnight)
6. Video (Barbra Streisand)
7. Somewhere (Katharine McPhee)
8. Through The Fire (Renee Olstead)
9. Got To Be Real (Cheryl Lynn)
10. Wildflower (Blake Shelton)
11. Video (Urban Cowboy)
12. Love Look What You’ve Done (Boz Skaggs)
13. Jo Jo (Boz Skaggs)
14. Chocolate Legs (Eric Benet)
15. Hard To Say I’m Sorry/You’re The Inspiration/Glory Of Love (Peter Cetera)
16. Amapola (Andrea Bocelli)
17. Because We Believe (Andrea Bocelli)
18. The Prayer (Andrea Bocelli and Katharine McPhee)
Act II
1. Asturias (William Joseph)
2. Video-Because You Loved Me (Celine Dion and David Foster)
3. I Swear (Babyface and Kevon)
4. Feeling Good (Michael Buble)
5. Home (Michael Buble and Blake Shelton)
6. Save The Last Dance (Michael Buble)
7. Video-Bodyguard w/Kevin Costner
8. I Have Nothing/I Will Always Love You(Charice)
9. Alla Luce del Sole(Josh Groban)
10. Bridge Over Troubled Water(Josh Groban with Brian McKnight)
11. You Raise Me Up(Josh Groban)
12. Got To Be Real(All)
The David Foster official biography “Hitman: Forty Years Making Music, Topping the Charts, and Winning Grammys” will be also released in November 2008. A 272 pages hardcover book that every David Foster fan should pre-order it !
With those words, Grammy-award winning composer and producer David Foster officially welcomed Charice to the musical world. And with those words, Charice made it to the consciousness of the audience inside the jampacked concert hall, who trooped to Vegas to watch a tribute to the musical genius that is Foster.
The event was the star-studded David Foster & Friends concert held Friday, May 23 at the Mandalay Bay Event Center. It was an almost fourhour musical extravaganza that featured tour de force performances from Foster’s friends such as Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, Michael Buble, Katharine McPhee, Peter Cetera, Brian McKnight, Babyface, and Boz Scaggs.
Charice, a day after the once in a lifetime show, was still on a natural high the following day when we had a chance to chat. She was the penultimate performer to take the stage and Foster introduced her as someone whose talent “you’ve never seen before”. She sang a medley of I Have Nothing and I Will Always Love You, from the movie TheBodyguard.
After her stellar performance, the audience rose to its feet and awarded her with a standing ovation. Trying to contain her tears, Charice exchanged high-fives with Foster.
Only three other performers received a standing ovation when they performed, and rightly so.
Foster received his the moment he entered the stage, Bocelli got his in each and every song he did and Groban got his standing ovation after his four-song set.
After her medley, Charice performed And I Am Telling You, the song that catapulted her into world-wide YouTube fame. With such poise, grace and precision, the young singer belted her way out of the Dreamgirls song and earned yet another standing ovation from the audience. Charice approached Foster and they hugged.
This was when the audience got up on their feet and cheered for the young singer. “That was just incredible. I can’t think of anybody who can top that,” Foster said, “Charice, don’t forget that name.”
…
Concert viewers are one in claiming that Charice more than delivered the goods that night.
According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, “If Groban is one of Foster’s most renowned discoveries, this night truly belonged to a newer one, doe-eyed 16-year-old Filipino belter Charice, whose voice is like a jetliner taking off from her sternum.”
In between the medley and her second song, Charice responded to Foster’s question about her and where she came from.
“I’m from the Philippines and I started singing when I was 4,” she said, and the Filipinos applauded wildly. “May mga Pilipino ba diyan?” she asked, and was met by louder screams.
…
The Others
Tennis legend Andre Agassi introduced Foster and said that it was a great honor for him to introduce one of the greatest musical talents of our time. “He started with a vision, then it became a calling, and now it is a movement,” Agassi said as he described Foster’s other passion aside from music.
The musician has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his own foundation which assists families with children in need of organ transplants and other causes such as the fight against cancer and AIDS.
One by one, a cavalcade of stars happened and performed a song or two with the man of the hour.
Kenny G, Michael Johns, Brian McKnight, Katharine McPhee, jazz artist Renee Olstead, Cheryl Lynn, country singer Blake Shelton, Boz Scaggs, Eric Benet, Peter Cetera and Andrea Bocelli, who was the finale of the first part of the show.
The second half opened with pianist William Joseph, followed by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Michael Buble, then Charice and Josh Groban, who served as the evening’s finale, and as Foster said, “the only one person tonight who can follow Charice”. Groban performed five songs, including his signature hit You Raise Me Up and a duet of Bridge Over Troubled Water with McKnight.
“He is going to be around for a very, very long time,” Foster said of Groban. The illustrious Bocelli, who flew from Tuscany just for the show, had a larger than life stage persona and the audience just lapped at every song he sang. I had goosebumps listening to the man. To describe him as amazing would be an understatement.
He performed The Prayer with American Idol alum McPhee, who was just resplendent and captivating every time she appeared onstage. McPhee’s natural charm and her melodious voice are a potent combination. Michael Buble was the wild one in the bunch. He goofed around both in his performances and during the spiels. It was a welcome sight, especially for those who always see him in very formal clothes during very formal gatherings. He had spot numbers and sang Save the Last Dance for Me and his own duet, with country crooner Shelton as they sang their hit Home.
“I truly had no idea of the magnitude of his talent,” Foster said of Buble before he introduced the singer.
The $2 million one-night only musical event was filmed for broadcast this December on all PBS stations nationwide while the CD/DVD of the show will be released by Warner Bros. this fall.
His songs always seem to sprout wings and not only fly too close to the sun, but swallow it whole.
He favors singers with voices so big, it’s as if they were trying to smuggle a gospel choir in their lungs.
For David Foster, more is always more, and why nibble when you can gorge? If the guy was a chef, he’d weigh 500 pounds.
Instead, Foster’s a well-decorated songwriter and producer who has seemingly notched that number of hits over his 35-year career.
On Friday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, Foster revisited his extensive canon with more than a dozen singers whose careers he has helped shape, from neo-classical pop superstar Josh Groban to honey-voiced R&B crooner Brian McKnight to former Chicago frontman Peter Cetera.
At nearly four hours long, with a 15-minute intermission, the show was every bit as outsized and extravagant as Foster’s works have long proved themselves to be. The $2 million production was taped for a TV special to air on PBS this winter, as well as a corresponding CD/DVD release.
The evening underscored the secret to Foster’s success: He’s a penultimate craftsman, a guy who seldom seems to pay much heed to genre distinctions because the basis for a hit is largely the same in all of them.
He traces the shared genealogy of seemingly disparate forms of music — say, country and R&B — by applying the same principles of songwriting to each one: a meticulous production done with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpela meticulous production done with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel, an emphasis on melodrama and a love for the kind of soaring voices that aren’t satisfied until they’re resting on a bed of clouds.
As such, his works have been dismissed as maudlin by some, and Foster is well-aware of this.
“Most people that know me know that I haven’t been in an elevator for 30 years,” he wrote in the program for the show. “Some people would say that’s because I don’t want to hear my own music!”
Sure, it’s some indulgent stuff at times, but then again, a glass of chardonnay is indulgent compared to a can of Coors Light and Foster’s musical decadence is tailored for pop epicureans. It’s the audio equivalent of eating prime rib for breakfast.
And there was plenty to feast on during this night.
Backed by a mammoth band that included members of the Las Vegas Symphony, Foster occupied center stage at his piano while a rotating cast of singers joined him to belt out a jukebox worth of songs you know by heart.
They ranged from his first hit (stirring ballad “Wildflower,” sung by country singer Blake Shelton) to foot stompin’ funk (Cheryl Lynn’s “Got To Be Real”) to neo-jazz swing (a dapper Michael Bublè purring through “Save The Last Dance For Me” like a kitten getting its belly rubbed).
The show was highlighted by a series of dramatic duets, such as former “American Idol” contender Katharine McPhee joining operatic Italian crooner Andrea Bocelli for a heart-in-the-throat version of torch song “The Prayer;” Shelton and Buble trading lines on the wistful “Home” and Groban and McKnight teaming up on Simon and Garfunkel standard “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.”
Speaking of which, Groban was the night’s main attraction, especially for the many in attendance with silver hair.
When Groban tore into his signature “You Raise Me Up,” audience members leapt to their feet like they had just won at bingo.
If Groban is one of Foster’s most renowned discoveries, this night truly belonged to a newer one, doe-eyed 16-year-old Filipino belter Charice, whose voice is like a jetliner taking off from her sternum.
She turned in a stunning rendition of Whitney Houston-by-way-of-Dolly Parton hit “I Will Always Love You,” singing with such power and poise, it was hard to believe that she wasn’t even yet alive when the song originally became a hit on “The Bodyguard” soundtrack in 1992.
“Tonight, a star is born,” Foster gushed after her brief set, another grand sentiment from a man defined by them.
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