There’s a Post-it note of personal goals Mario Jose carries; a note he would check once in a while to help him stay on track of his dreams. With one of the brightest smiles in Los Angeles, it is certain that he has accomplished one of those goals—to step out of Berklee College of Music an educated musician. And now with the release of his debut record Heart of Gold, the world now has the opportunity to hold its breath and listen to the golden voice its long been waiting for. The lively 28-year-old has always been surrounded by music. His father, a first-generation Filipino trombone player, and his mother, an Italian singer, brought Jose up with all the support that would lead him to where he is today. They raised him on the soulful voices of Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, and powerhouse singers Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Céline Dion. A life of music was inevitable, and Jose knew right from the start that it would be his main focus. He attempted writing as a teenager and while he was a student at Berklee, but didn’t feel that he was giving his all until he sat down with songwriter JP Saxe. “I don’t want to […] Continue Reading
When the first part of this season’s The Loft Sessions was released, Los Angeles based producer and former guitar player of Kjwan Jorel Corpus couldn’t wait to tell everyone about it. The season opens with Filipino-Italian singer Mario Jose, backed by a band, a full orchestra, and a choir of music graduates and incredibly talented kids from the Pascale Camerata, a professional level chamber orchestra featuring middle and high school students. They filmed at The Warehaas in downtown Los Angeles, which was a bit of a challenge for Corpus to record as one of the production’s engineers in the unconventional space—setting up at least 40 mics in the area for the 50 musicians in the warehouse. All the hard work the team behind The Loft Sessions truly paid off as the final product of the one day shoot turned into something more of a spectacle, and without a doubt, a benchmark for whatever creator and musical director Evan Chapman has in store for future projects. The Loft Sessions started back at Berklee College of Music in 2012 as a platform to showcase emerging artists. Chapman tells BillboardPH, “The overarching goal from the start of the Loft Sessions project was to create an atmosphere where incredible […] Continue Reading
