THE concert circuit is starting to get crazy this love month. Shows have been booked, promotions are ongoing, and ticket demand is heating up.

For many of our local singers, February is a gauge if they are still hot. The more senior singers are also suddenly very visible since most hotels and concert halls would have something to offer the public in terms of shows and other Valentine activities, aside from just dining out.

Concert King Martin Nievera collaborates with Megastar Sharon Cuneta for their first-ever concert together. They vow to take the Smart Araneta Coliseum by storm on February 11 and the show will have another schedule in Cebu City.

“I’m so excited to share the stage with Martin, a friend from way back and the ninong of my daughter Miel,” said Cuneta, adding, “The show is shaping up to be a really good one, in terms of production values, choice of songs and surprises.”

Rico Puno and his noontime show co-hosts bid the TV public farewell over the weekend but Puno’s schedule is full.  On February 14, he is having a solo show at the Resorts World, and he has no qualms in telling us that it’s meant to be a “for adults only” show.

Lea Salonga is excited that she will be singing a few songs as guest in the James Ingram concert. Engelbert Humperdink will surely delight the senior citizens who will troop to his show.

Ding Mercado, Eugene Villaluz, Louie Reyes, Ray-An Fuentes, Jacqui Magno and Pat Castillo will bring back the musical glory of the ’70s at the Music Museum this Friday and Saturday. With more regular jobs and businesses to oversee, this group gets together from time to time because of their common passion.

Basil Valdes is making a splash again, coming out with a new CD and joining The Company and Rachelle Ann Go for a special show at the Resorts World on February 13.

Still under wraps

TALKS are ripe that popular beer brand San Mig Light will be launching a new and much-awaited TV campaign very soon. My friends from advertising are talking about the rumors regarding who the latest endorser the brand will pick.

The last endorser was sexy Sam Pinto and we heard that it’s going to be a male endorser. Some quarters are saying that’s it’s going to be a comedian, while others say that he is one big star.

Our well-placed industry sources, however, told us that a deal has actually been reached with the celebrity and he has quietly shot a TVC. The advertising agency, they said, was sworn to secrecy along with the celebrity’s management team.

Let’s all wait and see who’s that lucky guy who will be paid a hefty amount to hold that bottle of San Mig Light.

Cynthia Alexander collaborates with Ballet Philippines

Ballet Philippines opens its curtains to an all-new, all-original contemporary ballet, Pusong Wagas, at the Little Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines from February 17 to 19. This production is extra-special because the country’s top artists are collaborating, among them alternative music stronghold Cynthia Alexander, playwright and poet Nicolas B. Pichay and celebrated choreographer Alden Lugnasin.

Set in pre-colonial Manila, Pusong Wagas highlights the exemplary love of Luyong, a gifted carpenter, and Manda, a tribal princess, and their sacrifice in the face of the coming foreign invaders.

Alexander is a singer-songwriter of uncompromising artistic integrity, and fans adore her prose-poetry infused music and haunting melodies that make use of ethnic Philippine and Asian rhythms. She once played gongs and bass for her brother, Joey Ayala, who incidentally has also collaborated on a number of Ballet Philippines productions, like Agnes Locsin’s Encantada and Noche Buena.

Not many know that Cynthia is also a visual artist and the ad hoc curator of the Conspiracy Walls arts space in Manila, and her visual artwork toured with the Bae Mindanao exhibit in Rome and Andorra in 2011.

“I have always written sound for words, but writing music for dance is experiential, magical and pure metamorphosis. Caterpillar to butterfly, carbon to diamond, sound coming to life and living itself,” Alexander says of her experience writing for a full-length dance production.