For love of music

MANILA, Philippines – Some showbiz insiders insist there would be no Sarah Geronimo had she stayed put in the country as a Viva Records artist instead of going to Australia to finish her studies.

Christine Love just smiles and says, “I have no regrets. I took up music in Sydney. I matured as a performer.”

“Matured” is an understatement. Christine further honed her musical chops while jamming with jazz performers in New York bars where Jonathan Potenciano invited her to join his band. 

The intimate shows, where she rendered Sinner or Saint in a style only she knows how, gave her the discipline to keep on working on her craft.

She embraced ballads with a passion and found comfort in singing sentimental numbers the way Imelda Papin and Claire dela Fuente have done.

And when she returned to the Philippines to visit her ailing grandmother, Christine knew she not only wanted to sing, she also wanted to share what she knows to those who share her passion. Her music school, The Voice Box, is now four years old. Someday, Christine adds, she will also put up a recording studio.

It helps a lot that her songwriter-mother, Cecille (nee Marcaida), a finalist in the first Metro Pop fueled Christine’s love for singing. Music, it turns out is in her genes. And Christine found out she can’t resist its call after listening to Whitney Houston’s The Greatest Love of All.

“The song inspired me to pursue singing as a career,” Christine recalls.

Too bad she had to cut short that career which she started in the Philippines when she went back to Australia to finish school. Now that she’s done with her studies, Christine is bent on picking the pieces.

After all, wasn’t it she who replaced Regine Velasquez when the then struggling songbird’s recording company barred her from singing a song under a rival music outfit?

And so, a decade or so after Christine came up with her debut album, she’s all set to release her second outing, again under Viva (it was the company’s big boss, Vic del Rosario who discovered Christine). The album is doubly meaningful to Christine. It contains her mom’s compositions. The late Toti Fuentes also composed some of the tracks.

And while ballads and slow songs define her, Christine wants to spring a surprise now and then. She promises to “move on stage,” or present something different, in her show, A New Love on May 15, 8:30 p.m. at Music Museum.

Those trademark Broadway numbers, movie themes and sentimental tunes will still be there. But this time, Christine will venture into something livelier, with guests, Immigration Commissioner Nonoy Libanan and Mark Bautista.

“I’m back for good,” Christine declares. And this time, she will no longer change her mind.