Prodigy comes home

CEBU, Philippines — At four years old, Kate Torralba started picking up music, learning Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” on the piano entirely by ear. At seven, she received formal musical training and at nine, she was already playing in a concert in Los Angeles. Now nearly 40 years old, the Cebuana fashion designer-musician is living the life of an artist no matter how fickle it can be.

After being based in London for almost four years and performing across the globe, Kate recently came home to perform at a mini concert called “Kick Off the Monday Blues with Kate Torralba” at the 38 Park Avenue showroom at Cebu I.T. Park.

“I’m so happy to be spending some time in Cebu again. I haven’t been home this long,” Kate, who just got back from a show in Singapore and then came home for the holidays, quips in an interview. “It’s an exciting year for me.”

Being a successful fashion designer with 17 stellar years of experience and an arsenal of fashion icons and celebrities as clientele (Tim Yap, Lucy Torres, Kris Aquino, Tessa Prieto-Valdez, etc), Kate decided to close shop and reunite with her first love of music at the advice of Ryan Cayabyab, Gary V, and Rico Blanco after joining a songwriting workshop that changed her life.

Kate has released an album since: the five years in the making “Long Overdue” with MCA Universal which came out in 2013 to rave reviews.

Now a touring artist, Kate has performed in London, Paris, and Singapore, to name a few. Apart from shows focusing on Asia this time, Kate says she’s working on completing her second album.

“I’m trying to release by yearend but I’m very OC, and I really take my time so probably early 2019 at the latest. It’s exciting because I’m collaborating with other Filipino artists and producers and even from abroad.”

Kate explains her album is, in a way, the same as her first one, but also inherently different.  “I’ll be releasing singles. Unlike the first album it was like one big project but this time I’m working on it single by single. I wrote the songs during my tenure in London. I lived there for almost four years, and I wrote as I was experiencing life in London which was quite tough.”

She continues, “I guess the new album is a little more grown up, probably more mature. There’s a little bit of melancholy. My life feeds my songwriting so I guess it’s a very personal album. I’m telling the things I went through. It’s like a diary. I can’t write music that I don’t actually feel, which is probably why it’s more personal.”

When Kate decided to trade her piano for the electric guitar after discovering rock music in high school, she also took it upon herself to design clothes for her band which became her springboard into the fashion industry. However, with the success came an insane amount of workload, and soon enough the gravity of a department store line, a hosiery line, and a production line hit Kate at the maximum. She felt her creative energy slowly ebb away.

Funny enough, years after she boxed away her design plans, Kate recently found herself designing again in the middle of her musical journey.

“I realized that fashion is such a big part of me,” she muses. “Even when I wasn’t making clothes, people in London respond to how I dress and like the clothes I wore. When I wear my own creations they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s so nice. Who made it?’, and I say I made it and they tell me that I should be making clothes. Fashion is just another transmission of my creativity,” she quips.

Realizing that she did enjoy fashion as genuinely as she enjoyed music, Kate felt that maybe she wasn’t being true to herself for a second there.

“I write songs and play music. I style. I feel like designing is such a big part of me and I wasn’t being authentic. I was ignoring, suppressing that side of me. So I said, wait a minute—I can still do it even if I’m doing my music,” she says.

“I feel like I’m starting again in fashion because I took a very long break. As I’m sort of dabbling in it again, I won’t do fashion the way I used to. I was just doing so much, so now I calibrate how much of fashion I can do that’s actually workable, that’s not stressful, and that’s enjoyable. For now, I’m doing projects that I enjoy,” says Kate, who is currently working on clothes for her tour, a few weddings for friends, and a little line of clothes “for a very special little girl.”

With that reawakening, it also dawned on Kate that fashion and music are but different channels of the same creative energy and both crafts are vital to her expression, her identity even.

“They’re different transitions of the same creativity, the same soul, the same person. With fashion I don’t take myself too seriously. With music it’s more intimate, it’s more of sharing a secret with people. With fashion it’s on the outside. You know when you put together an outfit, I don’t need to talk to you to know what kind of person you are. It’s not like I’m judging you but they’re little visual cues of who you are as a person. I don’t think too much about it [fashion], it’s more of a very automatic thing. But in music I’m so praning and OC, obsessive and particular.”

“I’m brighter, more humorous in fashion. You put it on and then you take it off. I feel like it’s not as permanent as music, which you listen to over and over again,” Kate muses.

Kate doesn’t really know how she does it. She didn’t see the success in fashion and music coming. But if there’s anything she’s sure of, it’s that she’s having a blast.

“I’m still starting out as a musician to be honest. I honestly feel like I haven’t figured things out with myself in terms of music. But I really love it. Everything I do or create, I have to just really love and enjoy it. It’s too much effort to try and do something you don’t enjoy,” she says.

The musician loves playing either in big stages or small pubs with the same amount of gratitude and excitement, and learning and connecting with all sorts of people regardless of style, language, or taste. In one of her favorite gigs, Kate begged to play in a small beer house for her first show in Singapore. It was no more than a narrow corridor, and she sang in front of a beer freezer. And yet she enjoyed it. Fast forward to her latest show, this time on a big nice stage in Singapore, people were quick to realize that she was the same petite woman who played in front of a freezer all those nights before.

Kate was somehow somebody and nobody at the same time: some days she plays for strangers, some nights she performs for the French ambassador to the Philippines. She revels in the duality.

“Every show is magical because you’ll never have that moment again. You’ll never be in the same room with the same spontaneous energy,” she says.

Having performed on hallowed grounds with the likes of the Troubadour in London (graced by Richard Harris, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Morrissey), Kate also expressed how blessed she is to travel and perform with amazing musicians. Despite her love for the spontaneous (she doesn’t prepare a set list and even decides to play with other artists sans rehearsing), she’s still insanely happy that all of these artists want to work with her on stage.

“I’ve been lucky enough. I’m pretty spoiled in Manila. My band members from time to time are the guys from Barbie’s Cradle, these super legendary musicians. Buddy Zabala, Raimund Marasigan. They’re like the Beatles of the Philippines. It’s kind of a nightmare, but it’s also fun. We just wing it and I like the excitement and tension that ‘Oh my God is it gonna go very badly or very good’ and usually it’s really good. Because when you’re tense, maninuod man ka’g tukar. The level of attention is higher. I like being spontaneous,” she shrugs.

Living her life’s dream and content with her art, Kate often jokes about how she still hasn’t found the right man to settle down with.

“He hasn’t shown up yet. He could be in rehab or in jail,” she jests. “This is probably God’s way of telling me that it’s not the right time for you yet to be in a commitment.”

“I planned lots of things, and I want to create, and there’s so much of the world to see. I want to travel more and share more with music. That’s why I do this, why I’m a touring musician, to meet you guys and chat, and share who I am and get to know you too,” Kate offers.

On plans of going mainstream, Kate says she might take it slow for now. She loves her little space and her little community—but that doesn’t mean she’s closing any doors.

“I’m happy where I’m at right now. The little niche I have, the lovely people who come to my gigs. I’m content for now but if the opportunity arises, and it feels right, maybe? I’m happy with the way that things are manageable, and I can still keep it at a personal level,” she explains.

“This is my prayer: ‘God take me where I need to be.’ You just surrender, because even if I make a plan, it’s gonna be His plan that’ll be executed because He’s the boss.”

*“Kick Off the Monday Blues with Kate Torralba” was presented by El Camino Developers Cebu Inc., a five-company consortium behind a world-class, New York-inspired masterpiece soon to rise at Cebu IT Park. 38 Park Avenue is a landmark development featuring a mixed-use urban park concept that will highlight a high-rise residential condo, office tower and retail boulevard featuring a Central Park-inspired green park called The Plaza. The first phase is a unique 38-storey residential experience that towers over all others in the area. Designed to perfection, units are meticulously designed and angled to have the best panoramic view of Cebu.