My Feelings Found When I Kiss You...

Cuando Te Beso (When I Kiss You), I have a war of feelings about this composition inside me for many years and I have never told anyone, so this will be a confession post. You can play the video, it was one of the musical arrangements we presented at the World Choir concert almost two weeks ago here in Caracas. The song has a solo for a tenor while the choir accompanies with the harmonic base, but since there were special guests in Venezuela, we did a version with two soloists, a Venezuelan tenor and a Nicaraguan baritone.

Fabricio Espinoza, Baritone from Nicaragua

In the year 2013, I applied twice to join the choral group to which today I proudly belong, but on both occasions I was rejected, obviously I still lacked a lot of level to get there, but I was younger, I was in my 25 and I had just moved to a new city. I got very upset, but not with me, but with everyone, because I considered myself very good, so in my annoyance I went to a competing musical institution, auditioned and got the first try. I remember that this song was one of the ones they were preparing for what would be my first concert with them and I fell in love with the solo, besides I considered myself the best, I had to sing it myself. The conductor liked my interpretation very much and told me that I was the best singer, but finally they didn't award it to me because I sang with the baritones and this is a tenor solo. I was the new guy, I couldn't fight against all the tenors who thought they were the masters of that chorale 😅

Almer Piaspam, Tenor from Venezuela

For the year 2017, the best year of my life so far, two important events happened and they were almost simultaneously, which are achieving the love of Jhoxiris and a week later entering the Simon Bolivar National Choir (obviously I did not last long in the competition choir, because I really did not compete with her).... From the beginning I knew that Jhoxiris is the woman of my life and I began to think of original ideas to commit myself to her. It was in 2021 when I had everything ready; at the end of the quarantine I told eight colleagues of the choir that I wanted to sing this song "Cuando Te Beso" to Jhoxiris, and while they did the accompaniment I would take out the engagement ring surprisingly and I would ask my girl to marry me. Again I have been betrayed by this song, as I was making my plans, the choir director revealed that we would be singing this piece of music at our next concert and the magic was over. The good thing about my idea was that Jhoxiris had never heard this song and now it was part of the common repertoire of our group until today 😭

Jhoxiris and me in the World Choir El Sistema

My third encounter with "Cuando Te Beso" was shortly after, and this time I thought I would almost win the battle against it. Being a song that I love so much, without asking if I could or not, in the first musical reading of the choral arrangement, while the kids sang the harmonic base I began to sing the solo of the song, in front of everyone, without shame and in full voice. At the end everyone applauded me and the teacher was very satisfied with my interpretation, just as it happened in 2013, and this time history was in my favor, because now I am a tenor; however it was only the first reading, I remember that I sang it a couple of times more. It happens that one day I got sick with pharyngitis, I had to miss several days of rehearsals, until one night I got a message from the teacher telling me to go the next day because it would be the final audition to choose the soloist of Cuando Te Beso. The next day I showed up very early, but my voice was still very hurt and to my surprise, just the days I was on medical rest the new members of the choir came in, and one of them did the tenor solo, in fact I let him sing first because I was sure that nobody would surpass me, but no... After listening to him I felt sorry to have to sing it myself with my injured voice and I could see in everyone's face that I would not sing it again. That tenor is Almer Piaspam, one of my best friends at work today, I admire him a lot and he is one of the guys you can see singing in this video I brought you today.

Delegation form Republica Dominicana

Year 2023, Cuando Te Beso reappears in my life, now in the world chorus. They chose this piece to have music by a composer from the Dominican Republic, as this song is one of Juan Luis Guerra's greatest hits. As you can see in the picture above, there were several Dominican boys in the world choir, even the only male was one of the baritones, but he didn't want to sing the solo of the song, he was too young and I think he feels sorry for himself. So the teacher auditioned again to choose a soloist for this beautiful composition, but no, don't think I was going to try again hahaha. I know how things move in the choir, when someone sings something it's practically theirs for life. In my mind that audition is because the teacher wanted kids from other countries to join in singing, but no one wanted to, much less those who didn't speak Spanish, so my partner Almer sang again, standing out among so many tenors who tried and invited Fabricio, the only boy who came from Nicaragua to join him in a duet. I just sat back and watched what was happening and took up my challenge that this song and I love each other, but it is one of those impossible loves, although maybe I will get it off my chest one day by singing my version in Hive.... This is the original version, I hope you enjoy it: