His Genius Wife Is A Superstar

Chapter 1648: Call of the Spotlight (Part I)

"Ladies and gentlemen, our first judge is a prolific composer who created the much-beloved theme songs of our favourite telenovelas for the past three decades. He's also the loyal husband of our legendary Queen of Ballad, please give it up for Mr. Love Song himself, Albert Alcala!"

The middle-aged man, Albert Alcala, appeared and waved at everyone before taking a seat on the judging panel right in front of the audience facing the stage.

"Our next judge is an icon whose voice has graced us in the past six decades. Her songs are genuine classics that are always among the top ten most sung in karaoke. She is also known to support and mentor so many of our current favourite singers in the country. Please welcome to the stage, the Radio Siren herself, Dina Bendita!"

A younger male host supported the elderly lady, Dina Bendita, as she waved and took her seat on the judging panel beside Albert Alcala.

"And finally, we have a special guest judge for today. She came all the way from—"

"Boss Iris, we love you!!!"

"Kyaaaaaaaaah! Boss Iris!!!"

"Iris Long! Iris Long! Iris Long!"

Master Beauty pretended to take off one of her high-heeled shoes to throw at the audience. "At least wait for me to finish introducing her!"

"HAHAHAHAHA!!!"

The Filipino Black Stars who managed to secure free seats in today's live audience shook the banners they brought. Fortunately for the program, they didn't insist on making a ruckus and quickly settled down.

"Wow, so disciplined," Master Beauty couldn't help but comment.

Albert Alcala and Dina Bendita nodded their heads in agreement.

Master Beauty cleared his—ahem, ahem—"her" throat and restarted the introduction for the final judge.

"And finally, we have a special guest judge for today. This is her first-ever visit to the Philippines. You might know her as the songwriter and the original singer of the theme song of the hit C-Drama 'Our Love, Our Destiny' along with her brother-in-law, the Chinese superstar Jin Chonglin. She is also recorded to have made history for creating new musical techniques. Please help me welcome for the first time ever in the Philippines, the beautiful, super talented, multi-award-winning singer-songwriter and producer, Miss Iris Long!!!"

Iris stepped on stage and waved at everyone. The Black Stars led the entire audience to cheer for her.

The program staff didn't need anyone to hype up the crowd. Even those who weren't Black Stars couldn't help but gasp in surprise upon seeing such a beautiful woman.

Master Beauty along with the other hosts shook hands with her. This time, they didn't allow her to sit on the judging panel right away. They made her stand on stage with them first for a short casual conversation.

"First of all, I would like to thank you for coming in today as a special guest judge," Master Beauty said.

Iris smiled. "It's an honour to serve as a judge in such a popular singing competition here in the Philippines. I'm very excited to see what kind of talents you have here in 'Call of the Spotlight'."

Host 2: "I heard that you met with Mr. Albert and Madam Dina backstage and that you already knew about them beforehand?"

Iris Long: "Yes, it was such a pleasure to finally meet them in person. I knew about them because of my best friend and assistant, Dominic Chua. He's Filipino, by the way. Although I'm not very familiar with most of the showbiz personalities here in your country, I at least know a few of your musicians. Mr. Albert and Madam Dina are just some of those whom I know about."

The camera panned to the audience where Dom was seated. He saw himself on the monitor. He immediately beamed, drawing another wave of cheers from the Black Stars who were obviously familiar with him.

Master Beauty and the other hosts chatted with Dom for a bit. Meanwhile, the camera couldn't help but shift to the handsome man sitting beside Dom.

Host 3: "I'm sorry, but I have to interrupt. I can't concentrate while looking at such a handsome man."

Master Beauty: "Me, too! Iris, is it okay if you introduce that gorgeous specimen?"

Iris laughed, her eyes shining with amusement. "Of course. Everyone, that man is my beloved husband, Liam. He's my rock and my biggest supporter. Thanks to him, I was able to give birth to our beautiful twin babies."

Jin Liwei smiled at his wife while giving a polite nod to everyone else.

The hosts looked like they wanted to chat with him, but it seemed that Jin Liwei had already made a special request to the program director not to allow it. He wanted everyone to focus on his wife during this trip and not on him.

Master Beauty listened to the instructions on his earphones before signalling to his co-hosts to drop it.

They chatted with Iris instead before finally letting her join the judging panel. Albert Alcala and Dina Bendita both welcomed her with warm smiles.

Finally, the singing competition segment, "Call of the Spotlight", started.

The hosts introduced the first of the three daily preliminary contestants.

Dom sat behind Iris to help translate the mini-interview with the contestant. Although Iris could understand a little of the local language especially when it was mixed with English, she preferred to understand everything completely.

It was her respect for her job as the special guest today. It wasn't her style to pretend to understand when she had no idea what was going on.

After the mini-interview, the first contestant began singing his own rendition of an English song.

Iris didn't bother jotting notes. She focused on watching the performance and judging accordingly in her mind. She wouldn't forget her thoughts anyway. Her expression was serious, not giving anything away.

According to Dom, Albert Alcala was known as the strict judge in the panel. Dina Bendita, on the other hand, was known as the gentle and encouraging judge. There were other guest judges before, but almost all of them preferred to be nice to avoid getting bashed by the audience and viewers.

Iris never cared about the bashers. She didn't know what kind of judge she would be in this show.

To her, the most important was to be truthful.

She would critique as honestly as possible. The goal was to help the contestants realize their shortcomings and hopefully make the necessary improvements to their techniques.

When it came to musical techniques, she was confident in her own knowledge and skills learned from both of her lifetimes.

After the performance, Master Beauty and another veteran host joined the nervous contestant on stage.

The audience was encouraging, cheering for the contestant and helping him relax a little while waiting for the judges' critique.

The first to speak was Dina Bendita.

"A very good rendition of the song. You were shaky and nervous at the beginning, but you were able to recover quickly and hit most of the high notes. Not bad, child. Keep up the good work."

"Thank you, Madam Dina," the contestant said.

Next, Albert Alcala spoke.

"Like what Madam Dina mentioned, you were quite shaky, especially at the beginning. Maybe that's why your throat didn't open up as much as you wanted, right? Resulting in you struggling to sing as comfortably as you want. The quality of your voice is nice, but the nerves got to you, right? On a brighter note, I like how you fought through it and persevered. The end was much better than the beginning. Good job in making it through."

The contestant nodded his thanks, although he appeared a little dejected. He cast a hopeful glance at Iris.

"Can we hear what our special judge for today, Iris Long, has to say?" Master Beauty prompted.

The other judges, hosts, and most of the program staff had already long noticed that she didn't write a single thing in the provided notebook in front of her. They wondered if she had forgotten about it.

"I won't repeat what my fellow judges have said about you being shaky. Instead, I would like to point out other areas that I think will help you improve."

One by one, Iris listed and gave succinct explanations of the contestant's shortcomings. Her two fellow judges looked at her with mild shock. Even they hadn't noticed many of them.

"Can you sing this part again?" Iris asked all of a sudden.

The contestant obeyed.

"Stop. Try it this way." Then she demonstrated it, drawing awe from everyone else.

Although she and the contestant had completely different vocal qualities, she was able to help the other person improve with a quick tweak in technique.

By this time, both Albert Alcala and Dina Bendita were already looking at her with shining eyes filled with admiration. As musicians themselves, they respected fellow artists who had mastered music theory down to the most basic of basics.

"Your voice has so much potential," Iris told the contestant. "I think that it's a matter of choosing a song that's more suitable to your voice. This song requires too much force, power, and modulation—things that you still need to improve by a lot. If you address the things that I've told you today, I assure you that you'll be able to blow us away next time. Overall, your voice has high potential. You just have to work on improving your techniques and, of course, in handling your nerves in front of an audience."

The contestant bowed to her. Unlike the dejection when Albert Alcala critiqued him earlier, he now had fiery eyes. He was filled with motivation after listening to Iris' constructive criticism.