‘What came out after years of friendship and collab was a truly wonderful night of heartwarming songs and stories’
Classmates Toma Cayabyab and Mike Shimamoto were both in the Filipino honors section M from 2nd to 4th year at the Ateneo High School, and they were part of a boy group called M Boys, which released an album under Sony BMG decades ago.
Toma was the music and film director, while Mike was the performer-frontliner.
Fastforward to today, Toma is a respected teacher in the Interdisciplinary Studies in Ateneo and an accomplished musician – lead vocalist of his band Debonair District, a member of the Ateneo Chamber Singers and a conductor of the many orchestra groups here and outside the country.
Mike has a day job that enables him to practice psychology and organizational development, and is now the executive director of an NGO called Circle of Hope. He remains to be the lead vocalist of his band Haru, and he occasionally accepts special acting assignments like the series “Still” and a still unreleased independent musical fantasy film called “Aster,” with Celeste Legaspi, Floyd Tena and Gab Pangilinan in the title role
Both new generation singer-songwriters, Toma and Mike had the time of their lives last Saturday, when they featured their original music in their first ever big concert together at the Doreen Theater in Arete in Ateneo called “Heart to Heart, Stories of Love.”
Toma sang his originals like “Just Because,” “Just Like Old Times,” “Show Don’t Tell” and “Muntikan Na,” while Mike did his songs “Sumandali,” “Chunky Monkey,” “How Can I Walk Away From You (Evergreen)” and “Panahon.”
They also did covers like “Awit ng Barkada,” “I Will,” “Night and Day,” There’ll Never Be Another You,” “Tala,” “Ewan,” and “Awitin Mo, At Isasayaw Ko” plus their batchmate Guelan Luarca’s translation of Bonny Rait’s song “I Can’t Make You Love Me” called “Hindi Ko Mapipilit ang Ayaw Mo.”
Faye Yupano and Nica del Rosario were the special guests who really brought out the best in Toma and Mike as performers.
Asked about their initial reactions to having this big concert, Toma shares, “We were both surprised! Shocked even! We didn’t see ourselves as big concert names because we knew our music was very niche (in a good way!) but somehow, we were excited to perform to a bigger audience and get out of our comfort zones.” Mike adds, “I remember being very excited about the idea. There was a little uncertainty there since I knew Toma and I occupied such different spaces in music; him being in jazz and classical, while I’m more in indie/folk and alternative rock, but I was challenged by the idea of merging our two sounds together and wanted to see what we could come up with.”
Toma said, “We decided to put in some songs that really had a huge story background. After all, the title of this concert is ‘Stories of Love’. We really handpicked each song to ensure that the story would tie in seamlessly from beginning to end to fit the themes: Infatuation, Love, Heartache, Healing and Hoping. Since we ourselves are also old souls, there should be some familiar favorites that would hopefully bring our audiences to the edge of their seats.”
Mike responds, “Toma and I have very different styles of music, so our song choices couldn’t be more different. But I think what ties us together is our shared love for classic standards like songs from The Beatles and OPM songs from APO and others. As for songs we had to exclude from the lineup, well, Toma and I actually have a wide selection of original compositions already. As much as we wanted to feature both of our catalogs, we had to pick favorites that fit our theme.”
On the high school memories, Toma recalls, “We’ve been friends since 2006! Funny because Shim (as Mike is fondly called by his classmates) and I were really batchmates since grade school but we never crossed paths during our time there. It was only through high school when Ateneo put us together – we took a test during our first year to see if we were fit to enter the Filipino honors program. As we entered our 2nd year, we were assigned to section M, the Filipino honors class; the informal name used was ‘MBoys.’ That was where we got our group name for our high school band.”
Mike adds, “In that Filipino Honors program in Ateneo, what we quickly learned was our class actually had a lot of talented musicians. We immediately bonded over our shared love of music and especially when we formed our band in 2007. Toma and I spent countless hours recording music, rehearsing, and performing. After high school, we went to the same university and would see each other around campus, get together during class reunions. So it’s a friendship nearing 20 years at this point.”
What came out after years of friendship and collab was a truly wonderful night of heartwarming songs and stories from Toma and Mike, who went out of their comfort zones to show their audiences what they’ve got – and what great talent they’ve truly got! People were singing and smiling all the time until the end of their concert, shouting for an encore!
