Martin Nievera. Handout photo
He may be the concert king who has performed in many arenas here and abroad, but not too many people know that Martin Nievera has an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Everything has to be in order around him. During the recent, week-long habagat rains, he spent the time — “six days off — organizing everything in his house.
“The typhoon made me stay inside the house and I organized every closet in my house,” Nievera told ABS-CBN News. “I’m not finished yet. It was the best. I loved it. I organized every closet in my house. Wow. And I'm not finished yet. It's the best. love it.
“If you ever need your closets to be done, call me. My friends in the US have brought me to their garage. Some of them have been a mess forever, I fixed everything. That might be surprising for most people who know me.”
While Nievera was used to doing shows with his own songs or songs that the audience likes, he has learned to cater his performances for different generations through all the four decades that he has been performing.
Nievera will perform in "Unang Siklab Liyab: Mga Himig ng Dakilang Pag-Ibig," on September 20 at The Theatre at Solaire. The concert brings together maestro Ryan Cayabyab and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of conductors Jonathan Velasco and Toma Cayabyab.
An exceptional roster of Filipino artists – Lea Salonga, Martin Nievera, Ogie Alcasid, Bituin Escalante, Gigi De Lana, Sofronio Vasquez and Arman Ferrer – will be in the line-up.
Joining them is the 200-member Liyab Grand Chorale, composed of eight of the country's distinguished choirs: the Ateneo Chamber Singers, Imuscapella, Konsertus, Mass Appeal, Novo Concertante, PCSO Chorale, UP Concert Chorus and the UP Manila Chorale.
Nievera with Ryan Caybayb and other people involved in 'Unang Siklab Liyab: Mga Himig ng Dakilang Pag-Ibig'
The overwhelming response to the concert has already underscored the enduring appeal of Cayabyab’s music. Tickets to the original 7 p.m. performance were sold out within two days, prompting producer Ducks Entertainment to add a 2 p.m. matinee on the same day.
READ: Martin Nievera shares why Gen Z should listen to Ryan Cayabyab’s music
Two couples – doctors Melfred and Arlene Hernandez and entrepreneurs Mon and Monique Eugenio – turned a longtime friendship and shared love for music into Ducks Entertainment, joining forces to bring Cayabyab’s vision to life.
“It’s so nice to do a concept show or a show featuring the music of someone else,” said Nievera. “What more the National Artist? So it’s an honor to be chosen as one of the cast members. So to be part of this show, especially Ryan Cayabyab's music and anything he puts his name on, if you're one of the chosen and you get the call, you better be there.
“It feels great to be doing this now, this late in my career, because I get to rediscover Ryan's songs. I understand Tagalog better now than I did 44 years ago.”
Nievera was tagged as the original Amboy (American boy). He first came to Manila from Hawaii in the eighties and has charted an enviable musical career.
READ: Martin Nievera opens up about getting bullied as a child in America
“I get to rediscover Ryan’s beautiful arrangements and I get to collab with some of the best singers in the country. So it's a win-win for me,” Nievera said.
He has two original songs from Cayabyab – “How Can I” and “The Best Gift.” Those two came from the same album. The latter was what Cayabyab wrote for Nievera’s dad, Bert Nievera.
“The last time I sang ‘The Best Gift,’ my dad was still alive,” shared Nievera. “Ryan wrote like a Christmassy-type song where father and son receiving the best gift, being a melody in Christmas.”
Nievera noted that the Gen Zs and even the younger ones, know that nostalgia is very in.
“I think, especially since we're talking about Cayabyab’s music, the Gen Zs will learn a lot. Musically, if you're a music fanatic, if you are someone who likes to study and dissect songs, what do they really mean, even the numbers game, when it comes to the arrangement, how many bars, what kind of intro. Is it syncopated?
“I am not a musician, so I might be giving you all the wrong terms. Do not learn from me, but you will learn from the music of Ryan Cayabyab. Like, there are some songs, I'll give you an example. Sting, in some of the colleges in the UK. They study his music. They dissect his music.
“Same with Ryan Cayabyab. I think it's very important that the Gen Zs put some Cayabyab into their repertoire, their music, their song list, as they call it. Because you are not an educated music lover, unless you have some Cayabyab in you. And I don't say that just because I'm a friend or I'm in the cast of hi concert.
“Because I'm learning. I've learned so much about his music. Again, I'm not a musician and I've had the honor of performing with Ryan and an orchestra. You put the two together. With an orchestra, you really see the marriage of the two songs, how he makes the strings cry when he wants you to cry, how it makes the horn section somehow answer back in the conflict of the song.
These are the things that you might not learn from a today Gen Z song. But you could, and will, from a Cayabyab artist. With a career as enduring as Nievera, “respect” is what he wants to pass on to the next generation.
“Respect what you do,” stressed Nievera. “There should always be respect in how you approach things. I'm learning it the hard way, because, when I first came out in the business, everything for me was luck. Right place, right time. Not too many people were doing what I was doing then.”
He added, “The ‘Be My Lady,’ the ‘Say That You Love Me,’ are songs of other people that came my way. I gave them my interpretation. You liked it. It a hit. Now, you better be musically educated. You better have some sort of an idea of the direction that you want to go with that song. And know the lifespan of that song.
“In short, long story short, you need to respect that song, that project. It's not just a one-hit wonder anymore. I mean, there were times where a one-hit wonder was enough. Now I think and I speak for the people, the songwriters of today. They want to write songs that will last. People like Ben and Ben and all the other bands that have come after Ben and Ben, they are writing songs today that are here to stay.
“Not the fly-by-night songs. The AI songs, for me, are really the easiest way to go because they seem to know what the, what is it that they call now the algorithms that the people like. Can you imagine if we knew what algorithms were before? Like, when I'm making a lineup for a show, I would have a hit show all the time. But where's the magic there? Where's the fun?
“It's always nice to experiment, to find out what are the algorithms. What the hell is an algorithm, right? Can you get that in a live performance? Can you get it in a live orchestrated piece? When Ryan is creating, he's not thinking of algorithms. He really thinks about the heart and soul of the Filipino, the meaning of that song, that love of country.
“How Can I?,’ the song Ryan wrote for me? How can I go on without you? What is it like to lose someone that you love? How can I even begin to survive tomorrow without you? There's no algorithm for that, for me. You can fake it. You can AI it, but you can't really live it. Ryan knew hugot before hugot even begins. “He’s the king of hugot.”
When Nievera was younger, he dabbled in acting in comedy flicks in the eighties. “When I’m watching theater, I do have those fantasies of going into musical theater,” he said. “Oh, I want to do that. But I realized I don’t have it to act. I’m Mr. Adlib. I would love to be the Filipino Phantom. Wow. To sing those songs. Oh my God. Lea Salonga, the first Filipino to receive the star on Hollywood Walk of Fame.”
Nievera recently watch the staging of “The Notebook, The Musical” and he was moved by the romantic story. In the cast were Celeste Legaspi, Rody Vera, Morrissette, Lawrence Mossman, Benedix Ramos and Sheena Balarmino.
So does he still get stage fright? “Now it's called stage excitement,” Nievera clarified. “I'm dying to get out there. I'm frightened when I'm not sure of the song. If I'm not really that secure with what I'm doing. I don't like to over-rehearse. I still get insecure of other artists. Especially these singers today. Have you heard Gigi de Lana sing or Jed Madela? You want to leave the room when they sing. Unbelievable.
He did a three-city concert tour with Jed Madela and Sofronio Vasquez last July. They are returning for a repeat at Saban Theater in Beverly Hills on October 25.
“We did something no collabs has ever done,” Nievera said. “Don't tell them, because they might copy it. We stayed onstage together 90 percent of the time. We might do the concert here maybe for Valentine’s.”
FROM THE ARCHIVES