Michelle Ayalde’s ‘answered prayer’

With her tight schedule on ASAP Mania and Star Records these days, Michelle Ayalde could have just bid her studies goodbye and focus on a more lucrative showbiz career. But no way. The junior Mass Communication student at Centro Escolar University will not abandon her regular academic load of 18 units in favor of here-today-gone-tomorrow glory.

Never mind if this Star Circle Batch 10 member (with Bea Alonzo) expects to be busier with promos after Star Records launched her self-titled debut album recently.

She knows her fellow coeds are rooting for her every step of the way, watching her shows, urging their friends to buy her album. And that, for Michelle, is something not all the screaming fans and endless autograph sessions can replace.

Her parents, who met while singing with the Solid Gold Band, must be tickled pink. Their fair-haired daughter does not just have the looks and the talent. Her feet are also firmly planted on the ground.

Michelle has been juggling recording and TV appearances for the past three years after she auditioned, and got accepted at the ABS Talent Center. And she shows no sign of slowing down.

After all, the limelight is something she has been used to since she was three. Her mom would bring her to her band‘s shows where Michelle imbibed the sights and sounds that would later make up her world.

At four, she was already winning singing contests. At eight, she studied voice at Ryan Cayabyab’s Music Studio for a year and even joined the respected school’s Glee Gals singing group, courtesy of the ABS Talent Center.

"She’s good. The voice is there. Michelle also has high musicality," Ryan, widely known as Mr. C in music circles, rates her.

Listen to her and you’ll see, as one writer put it, a singer whose voice is so refined you cannot detect rough edges. Her singing idols, Regine Velasquez, Lani Misalucha and Beyonce, speak a lot about Michelle’s musical tastes and the direction it’s headed for.It shows that Michelle is dead serious about her craft.

Some sectors even predict she’ll be the next Carol Banawa, now that the US-based singer seems to have no plans of returning to the Philippines.

This statement may be music to her ears. But Michelle insists she would rather be known as someone who creates her own style, thank you.

"I want to be known as someone who can perform many kinds of music: rap, rock, R&B, ballad," Michelle reveals.

For starters, she has the mellow Kay Tagal, originally sung by Rachel Alejandro, as carrier single of her album.

Michelle’s voice soars with longing in Kailan Kaya, theme of Marina.

It climbs the musical scales effortlessly in Ayoko Na Sana.

After all, Michelle’s not the voice behind the widely-heard Tagalog version of The Love You Want, for nothing. Her version got extensive airplay in radio stations, booting out the Taiwanese original from the disc jockey’s playlist.

But even with a popular song to her name, it took sometime for Michelle to finally squeeze in her first album into a tight schedule of studies, tapings, promos, etc.

"This album is an answered prayer," Michelle says, eyes glistening. But she’s not stopping there. She wants to dabble in acting (she’s getting a lot of training on ASAP Mania) and dancing too, for good measure.

Her efforts at self-improvement haven’t gone unnoticed. Michelle is nominated for Best Performance by a New Female Recording Artist for The Love You Want in next month’s 17th Awit Awards.

And no one is raising an eyebrow.