Is Europe ready for its first Asian Eurovision champion? Austrian-born and Vienna-based Vincent Bueno, the son of Filipino immigrants, believes so.
By Alex Y. Vergara
Pandemic or no pandemic, it seems there’s no stopping Filipino creativity from further enriching the rest of the world. Vincent Bueno, a full-blooded Filipino who was born and raised in Austria, will be representing the small European country in the forthcoming Eurovision 2021 singing contest from May 18 to 22. For what could be the biggest contest of his singing career, Vincent chose to collaborate with Dubai-based Filipino designer Michael Cinco by wearing his outfits.
“Yes, I feel I am an Austrian, but I also feel like a Filipino. I have the richness of two cultures in me that no one can take away,” says Vincent, 35, who’s in the thick of rehearsals, photo and video shoots for the make-or-break Eurovision finals, over email.
He will be singing “Alive” and “Amen,” videos of which have already been uploaded on YouTube, during the four-night competition. What everybody would be watching out for is how Vincent reinvents his rendition of such songs to impress enough Europe-based televiewers to cast their votes for him.
Vincent, after all, is no stranger to singing contests, having joined a number of smaller tilts, including the Musical Die Show, wherein he eventually emerged as the winner.
“I owe that victory especially to the Filipino community in Austria,” says Vincent, who once gave Philippine show business a try a little over a decade ago as one of ASAP’s upcoming artists. “This time, all of the OFWs in Europe can vote. What my fellow Filipinos can help me with is to tell their relatives in Europe to vote for me [in real time during the Eurovision singing contest].
As is typical of the Filipino diaspora, which started decades before Vincent was born, his mother, the former Corazon Mendoza, then a nurse from Nueva Vizcaya, belonged to one of the first batches of Filipino healthcare workers who flew and worked in Europe.
It was in Vienna where Vincent’s Manileño father, Antonio Bueno, who was then under contract with his band to play in a number of bars in Austria, crossed paths with his mother. After one such show, Vincent’s then future parents met and later fell in love. The two are now retired and living in Austria.
“I’ve been singing professionally since I was 16,” says Vincent, who once cut a record deal with Star Records. “Apart from singing, I’m also making music and video content for other artists at my studio, which I call Suitcase Media.”
As a performer, it has been Vincent’s dream ever since, he says, to wear Michael’s clothes on stage. Thanks to a certain Bertrand Rodriguez Jr., who messaged Vincent on Instagram, telling him that he should collaborate with Michael, a former PeopleAsia People of the Year awardee, for his contest outfits. It turned out that Bertrand is a common friend of both Vincent and Michael.
“Bertrand finally got Michael and I connected,” says Vincent, who has since been constantly exchanging messages with the designer. “And what a wonderful, humble person Michael is. It’s truly an honor for me to be working with him.” Despite having dressed up all those global A-listers, Michael, the singer adds, has remained “super down to earth.”
“I had a Zoom meeting with Vincent and the stage director of Eurovision, and they explained to me the details of the costume they want for the song ‘Amen,'” Michael, in a separate interview, shares on FB Messenger.
Michael, of course, is no longer new when it comes to dressing up celebrities—both Filipino, Hollywood and even Bollywood as well as Emirati stars. Off hand, his muses include such megastars as Mariah Carey, Beyonce and Aishwarya Rai. Pia Wurtzbach and Marian Rivera are also big fans of the designer. He could have refused lending Vincent a hand, but he didn’t.
“I just want to help him with his costume,” he says. “Even though he is already an Austrian representing a European country and not the Philippines, I still consider him a world-class Filipino talent deserving of support. His good showing in Eurovision would eventually benefit not only Austria, but also the Philippines.”
Vincent, despite having lived most of his life abroad, still speaks fluent Filipino, apart from English and German. Because of his diverse background and global upbringing, he considers himself an embodiment of the Eurovision motto #openup.
Should he do well, is Europe, particularly Austria, ready for someone of Asian descent to be the new Eurovision champion?
“The Eurovision community stands for equality, diversity and acceptance,” Vincent declares. After having witnessed an increasing number of cases of racism and hate crimes, some of which were directed against Asian communities in Europe, he believes, like most Europeans, that “it is really important for humanity to open up and be more accepting of each other.”
