Charice, A singing prodigy

Charice Pempengco
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco, better known by her stage name Charice (born May 10, 1992), is a 16-year old Filipina singer who became a YouTube sensation and guested in The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Early Years
Charice started to sing when she was only 4 years old. She and her mother would go to different places just to join local singing contests. After joining more than hundreds of local singing contests in her hometown and nearby provinces, she also had joined in different singing contests on numerous TV shows.

One of which that made her partly known in the Philippines was when she joined Little Big Star, a Star Search patterned singing competition. She was only 12 years old then and was eliminated right away from the contest but was later picked as a wildcard entry to reenter in the said competition. Eventually she worked her way up to become a finalist and became a consistent top scorer on the final rounds. Unfortunately, Charice only finished third.

Charice became 'invisible' in the media after the said contest until a stranger posted her videos up in YouTube.

Internet Sensation to International Stardom

Charice first attracted attention in the cyberworld when FalseVoice channel of YouTube posted her Little Big Star performance of Whitney Houston's hit, "I Will Always Love You." Many viewers thought her singing was fake, and that she was only lip synching because of her unbelievable vocals. Another popular video was a face-off between Charice Pempengco and America's Got Talent winner, Bianca Ryan. These videos brought Pempengco to the attention of Ten Songs Productions, a production company based in Sweden. She then traveled to Stockholm in June 2007 and recorded seven songs.

A few months later, FalseVoice released a video of Charice singing the Dreamgirls anthem, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." This earned her an invitation from one of the biggest television networks in South Korea, Seoul Broadcasting System, in October 2007 to perform on a talent show called Star King. The Korean audience was wowed by her jaw-dropping rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going."

Many viewers re-posted her Star King performance on YouTube, and Charice found her way into American television. TV network E!'s The Daily Ten featured her Star King performance with the headline, "A Star Is Born" on November 14, 2007 and then crowned her as the "Queen of the Week" on the Hollywood Royalty segment, this time with the headline, "A Queen Is Born" on November 16. Charice's Star King performance was also shown in LCI est @ Vous, a TV news program in France on January 24, 2008.

Charice Pempengco's performance on Star King was featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in its November 28, 2007 episode, in which Ellen showed web videos of different people she would like to have as guests on the show. After showing the video, DeGeneres did a standing ovation and imitated Pempengco's gestures. She later personally invited the young singer to perform on the show.

On December 19, 2007, Charice sang her already popular "And I Am Telling You, I'm Not Going" and "I Will Always Love You" on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, leaving the audience, Ellen and all of America in awe. Charice received prolonged standing obviations for both of her songs and she was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic reception she received form the audience. After an online poll on the Ellen DeGeneres Show's website, Charice won as the Most Memorable Moment of 2007 and is about to guest on the show again soon.

In December 2007, she went back to South Korea as she was chosen as the StarKing's Most Requested Foreign Act of 2007 after a nationwide voting system. She did receive standing ovations after she sung I Will Survive and a duet of I Will Always Love You with Lena Park. She also performed an a cappella version of Beyonce's Listen after she was requested by the host to sing a ballad song.

As soon as she got back to the Philippines after her Ellen and Star King guestings, she became an instant celebrity and did several guestings on different TV shows on ABS-CBN Kapamilya Network, becoming one of the most sought-after young singers in the Philippines.

On April 8, 2008, Charice invaded the United Kingdom after she guested on London's Paul O'Grady Show. She was requested to sing "And I Am Telling You, I'm Not Going" and "I Will Always Love You" and eventually, she got the same response by receiving standing ovations for her two performances which is a first to happen on the said show.

Charice appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on May 12, 2008. The episode was entitled "World's Smartest Kids" and featured 10 gifted children in their specific field. Charice was the only guest who sang. Charice sang Whitney Houston's - "I Have Nothing". She dazzled the audience, and Oprah as well with her jaw dropping powerful voice! After the performance Charice was honored with yet another prolonged standing ovation from the audience, as Oprah looked in almost disbelief of Charice's incredible performance. Oprah embraced Charice with hugs and showered her with compliments, at the same time Charice was a bit overwhelmed and got a little teary eyed.

Charice was later invited to the Grand Opening Weekend Celebration of MGM Grand , in Foxwoods, Connecticut on May 17, 2008. She sang a medley of Whitney Houston songs, namely "I Will Always Love You" and "I Have Nothing". The audience gave her the only standing ovation of the night and they also cheered her on to perform another song. David Foster on the piano immediately played "And I Am Telling You" and Charice sang it unrehearsed which earned her another standing ovation from the crowd. Charice also shared the stage with other superstar performers including John Mayer, Josh Groban, Alicia Keys, Jamiah Nash as they sang Key's hit song "No One" as the final song of the evening.

Charice performed on May 23, 2008 at The Event Center at the Mandalay Bay Resort to participate in a one night only live concert tribute to legendary producer David Foster. Charice had the honor of singing Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" and "I Will Always Love You" from the hit movie Bodyguard. Whitney and Kevin Costner, the stars of Bodyguard thanked Foster via video for writing and producing the mega hit songs for the movie. Charice then sang "And I Am Telling You" from the movie Dreamgirls. She received roaring standing ovations for each one of her performances.