Katrina Velarde

Katrina Velarde
Born	Katrina Copino Velarde (1994-12-05) December 5, 1994 (age 27) Tondo, Manila, Philippines
Occupation	Singer actress
Years active	2012-present
Spouse(s)	Mike Shapiro ​ ​ (m. 2021; died 2021)​
Musical career
Genres	OPM R&B Pop
Instruments	Vocals
Labels	Viva Records
Associated acts	Gary Valenciano Regine Velasquez Martin Nievera BuDaKhel
Musical artist
Website	Official website

Katrina Copino Velarde is a Filipino singer and actress. She became part of the group New Born Divas that competed in the second season of Talentadong Pinoy. In 2012, she joined the first season of The X Factor Philippines and became part of the girl group A.K.A. J.A.M. under Gary Valenciano's team. She also finished as runner-up on TV5's Masked Singer Pilipinas as Diwata.^[1]

Life and career[]

Born and raised in Tondo, Manila, Katrina started to join singing contest when she was 7 years old to help her family with their financial difficulties. She also sold Sampaguita lei that were made by her mother.^[2] Velarde was known as a veteran contender in some singing contest. She became part of Little Big Star hosted by Sarah Geronimo together with her batch mate Charice Pempengco and Sam Concepcion. Her biggest achievement was in 2006, when she won the title in Sonshine Radio's Survival Challenge, the biggest national singing competition on radio during its time. Katrina sang "One Moment in Time" by Whitney Houston as her winning piece. Morissette Amon was also part of the said competition.

2011: TV5's Talentadong Pinoy[]

Katrina together with her friends Alyssa Quijano and Jennifer Maravilla decided to form a group called "New Born Divas" to join the 2nd season of Talentadong Pinoy, one of the most popular reality talent searches during its time. After their group's consecutive winnings, they named as the 11th Hall of Famer.

2012: ABS-CBN's The X Factor Philippines[]

After "New Born Divas" has disbanded, she later joined The X Factor Philippines season 1 as a solo act. She sang "Dangerously in Love" by Beyoncé and got a four yeses from the judges. On her bootcamp performance, Velarde sang (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman by Aretha Franklin. After the day of that audition, the judges called the names of Katrina Velarde, Alyssa Quijano, Auriette Divina, Monique Lualhati, Jhelsea Flores and Ashley Campbell to inform them that they were chosen as the last act in groups category that made it to the Top 20 and it was mentored by Gary Valenciano.^[3] At the judges' home visit, A.K.A. J.A.M. performed Seasons of Love by the cast of Rent the musical and made it to the top 12. On the first week of their live show, their group performed the song Got to Be Real by Cheryl Lynn. On the second week, they performed This Is My Life (La vita) by Shirley Bassey. On the third week of their live show performance, A.K.A. J.A.M. performed Survivor by Destiny's Child. Unfortunately, their group didn't make it to the next level after losing to Daddy's Home via text votes of 4.42% and 5.53% respectively.^[4]

2013: Suklay Diva[]

After she uploaded a video of herself singing Dangerously In Love 2 by Beyoncé while holding a plastic comb as her microphone, netizens started calling her Suklay Diva(Comb Diva). It went viral after catching the attention of the netizens and started to gain international fame through social media.^[5] Her video went viral after Chris Brown and Beyoncé's guitarist Bibi McGill shared it on social media from worldstarhiphop.com and became a female talent of the week.^[6] Because of her viral video. Katrina Velarde got an invitation to showcase her talent on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.^[7] A segment that open its door for Filipino singer and internet sensation like Charice Pempengco. But due to her Bell's palsy condition, Katrina turned down the offer.

2014-present: TV5 career[]

Velarde became part of TV5's weekly drama series "Trenderas" with Isabella de Leon and Lara Maigue where she played the role of Diva Salambangon. Her natural wit and sense of humor brought her to nomination at the 2015 Golden Screen Awards as Outstanding Breakthrough Performance by an Actress. In 2015, she also played a main role in TV5's Wattpad presents #Bitterella. Because of her passion in singing, she received a lot of opportunities that made her as one of the successful divas in her generation. Katrina had a chance to showcase her talent on Wish 107.5 Bus YouTube channel singing her rendition of Go The Distance by Michael Bolton and gained millions of views after a week.^[8] Because of her ability to imitate local and international singers, she started to upload a video of her song covers that became popular to some foreign reactors on YouTube.^[9]

In October 2018, Katrina performed in the 2018 Philippine Popular Music Festival, an annual songwriting competition organized by the Philpop MusicFest Foundation. She interpreted "Tama Na",^[10] an original song written by Michael Rodriguez & Jeanne Columbine Rodriguez which was chosen as one of the 10 finalists but the song did not place in the competition. Velarde sang theme songs for VIVA films "Magkaibang Mundo", the Original Sound Track of the movie Just A Stranger starring Anne Curtis and Marco Gumabao. Followed by "Isang Himala" from the movie Miracle in Cell No. 7 (2019 Philippine film).

In 2019, during the interview of Martin Nievera for his upcoming concert together with Lani Misalucha, he revealed that Katrina Velarde also offered to represent the Philippines to compete at The World's Best, a reality talent competition that features international performers. On the other hand, she declined the offer because she wanted to focus on her son that's why TNT Boys got into it. Katrina released her first album "Sikat Ako".^[11] The title of her album was based on her first solo major concert. Due to its success, it follows her 2nd major solo concert "SiKat i2".^[12]

She later joined Masked Singer Pilipinas 2020 as DIWATA where she became 1st runner up over Daryl Ong. Her successful journey from that contest made her as a judge on a reality singing competition Born to Be a Star.

Vocal Profile[]

Entitled as the "Asia's Vocal Supreme," ^[13][14][15] Katrina Velarde is a Lyric Coloratura Soprano whose vocal range spans 5 octaves and a semitone, stretching from B♭2 to B7, with the exception of an exclaimed 8th octave note (C8) - this marks her as the first Filipino singer in history to hold a 5-octave vocal range. Classed as a Lyric Soprano, Katrina possesses a light voice accompanied by a warm, mature and bright sounding timbre; together with a towering tessitura, this allows for her to be able to soar as high as C6 (in mixed voice) with relative ease.^[16][17] Her highest mixed note is not a C6 however, but a semitone above, C♯6. Her lower register on the other hand, is rather impressive for such a soprano - she preserves consistency till E♭3/E3, and is able of retaining solid projection down to a C♯3. She is as well more than capable enough of sustaining a C3.

Speaking of the head register, Katrina is very adept at this area, although she doesn't get to showcase it as often. She can go as far as G♯6 in full head voice. Next in line is the whistle register, a register in the human voice that not every vocalist is capable of singing, or even doing at all. She is however, on the opposite side of the equation. Similar to her head register, she has shown herself to be pretty proficient at this area. Katrina's whistle register stretches as far as B7.

Having seemingly unrivaled breath management technique, she is able to hold long musical phrases in one breath and can last for up to 42 seconds without visible struggle.^[18]

Her astounding vocal agility is worthy of mention;^[19] As skillful as she is, Velarde is capable of flawlessly executing runs and riffs done in coloratura speeds (6 notes in .3 seconds, 11 notes in 1 second, 18 notes in 1.9 seconds).^[20][21][22] Arguably, not a lot of Filipino singers have such ability, reason why she is one of the very few agile/melismatic vocalists in the country today alongside Kyla (Filipino singer), Elaine Duran, Jay R, etc.

One of her better known traits as a musician however, is her capacity to imitate the sound and vocal styles of various local and international artists such as Regine Velasquez, Zsa Zsa Padilla, Jaya (singer), Jessie J, Beyoncé, Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, and Mariah Carey.

Discography[]

Studio Album[]

Singles[]

Concerts[]

• SiKat Ako (February 1, 2019), New Frontier Theater
• SiKat i2 (November 29, 2019), New Frontier Theater
• Four Hearts: A Digital Concert (August 28, 2021)

Filmography[]

Television[]

As a group[]

As herself[]

References[]