Marius Evangelista

Marius Evangelista
a Filipino-American Tenor

Jubel Obien Biography

Jubel Obien does not go back a long way with Marius the way Melody Versoza does, but they are linked in the past in a most surprisng way.

Andre happened upon Jubel's Web page one day while researching his CD project. After reading about her, he felt they were connected in some way, and he emailed her about possibly recording some duets with Marius down the road. She replied that she was willing to participate, and two years later she recorded her three duets.

It turns out that Jubel's mother Rosemarie (Lorenzana) was the classmate of Marius' aunt Daisy (De Pano) many years ago in the Philippines where both were choral and opera singers. It was Daisy who first gave Marius voice lessons here in the US. And as stated in Melody Versoza's bio, Melody's mother took voice lessons from Daisy long ago in the Philippines. So both Melody and Jubel have a rather surprising connection to Marius through Daisy. Yet Marius did not meet either of them through Daisy or their mothers.

Jubel's father, Dr. Frank Ines Obien, is a Methodist minister, while Marius' cousin Adiel De Pano in Oxnard is also a Methodist minister.

Jubel attended Cal State Fullerton as did Marius and Melody, and she knew their vocal coach Michael Kurkjian as well.

Jubel also studied with famed vocal coach Seth Riggs, as did Marius and Melody, and in fact Jubel is a certified Seth Riggs Associate.

Marius and Jubel have both in the past tried out for "Miss Saigon," yet neither of them made it. At least on this CD they made it, recording two duets from "Miss Saigon".

Jubel has two self-produced albums to her credit, both available on CDBaby.com. Yet she spends much of her time in musical theater either as a director, musical director, choreographer, performer, coach or teacher. She is the founder of Stage Presence Studios Riverside, and plans on expanding to a couple of more schools. Obviously she is very busy, and we were lucky to catch her long enough to record her three duets one Sunday afternoon.