The Christmas Album #2 in US!

Amazing news!!! This week Libera's The Christmas Album is at #2 on the Billboard Classical Traditional charts!!! EMI Classics US posted the great news! They said, "Thank you again for all of your support, here's hoping we can nab a #1 spot before the holidays!" They also said they are going to try a YouTube advertising campaign to let more people know about the album! Very glad to hear that!

So if you haven't bought the album yet or are looking for a great Christmas gift for family, friends, teachers or the office grab-bag, get this album now and help Libera reach #1 in the US! :D

Order The Christmas Album through Libera's Amazon link, and Libera gets a commission. :)

Philippines Deluxe Christmas Album

The re-release of Libera's Christmas Album with the extra track of "Himig ng Pasko" is now available in the Philippines! It's like their Deluxe edition because it's only available in the Philippines. Marj from the Pines shared a picture of it. She bought her CD at TriNoma Mall in Quezon City, Manila. It has all the picture/lyric cards in it, but still no silver Christmas ornament.

Libera performed "Himig ng Pasko" as a second encore at the PICC Manila concert last month. Here's the official video for it. If you don't have this CD, you'll want to get it! Lucky, lucky Philippines!

UK Christmas Contests

There are 5 contests that UK residents age 18 and older can enter!

1. Win a signed Deluxe Edition of The Christmas Album and 2 tickets to their 25th November concert at St. George's Cathedral in London. Enter at http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/competitions/Libera-2219.html I can't get a link for that one to work, so copy and paste please. The contest is open until 24th November. Hope you win! :D

2. Win a signed Deluxe Edition of The Christmas Album and tickets to their 25th November concert at St. George's Cathedral in London. Enter here. The contest is open until 17th December, but I don't know how that is possible if the concert is before that.

3. Win a signed Deluxe Edition of The Christmas Album and tickets to their 25th November concert at St. George's Cathedral in London. Enter here. It doesn't show a date when the contest ends.

4. Win a signed Deluxe Edition of The Christmas Album. Three winners will be chosen. Enter here. This contest is open until 15th January 2012.

5. Win a signed Deluxe Edition of The Christmas Album. Enter here. You can enter this one if you are age 16 and older.

Thank you to Fan de LoK and Jimmy Riddle for the links. :)

Libera's Christmas Album Debuts at #15!

Congratulations, Libera! The Christmas Album debuted at #15 on the Billboard Classical Album chart! This is not just Amazon sales but all sales data in the US! Awesome!

And The Christmas Album will be coming out in the UK in just 6 days. It'll be exciting to see where it lands on the UK charts. :)

Christmas Album Preview Video

Libera has a great new video ad for their Christmas Album! It includes footage from a lot of different places, but a lot of it is from the Philippines Christmas concerts!

Michael is sooo cute! "This year we're having a Christmas album which is going to be all Christmas-y." Nano Ben is also super cute talking about his favorite: "In Dulci Jubilo." He says he likes how it's "bouncy and jolly." I like that he uses the word jolly. The word "Jolly" has a very Christmas feel to it. :)

Michael & Barney

Matthew R-A & Nano Ben

Wow, Jude looks old! Growth spurt! It's funny to hear him talking about the "little ones" now. Boy he grew up fast! And I love all the photo shoot pictures! So cute!

Ralph & Jude

Also love how Barney talks about his "buzz" before he goes up to perform, and then they have a video of him being goofy backstage before the concert. :D It must be nice to have a bunch of friends there with you so that if you get nervous, like Michael said, you can just goof off with your friends.

Barney getting his "buzz!"

Jakub doesn't seem nervous. :)

Barney helping Michael smile? Or stretch out his lips? lol.

What is Ralph doing with his ears? 

Cassius is absolutely right about "White Christmas," and I think that's why it is such a classic song. It really has that Christmas feeling to it!

I think this is Stefan singing "White Christmas."

I am in agreement with Kavana about my favorite song. I LOVE "Carol of the Bells" for the same reasons he says. It's so dramatic!

Kav & Ca$$

Ah, and then we get to see some of the boys' videos from the Philippines! I think my favorite is the one of Eoghan spinning around in the chair. It's so perfectly in sync with the music too! LOVE IT! :) Awesome ending! Hope a lot of people get the album! It's really great!

Barney at Philippines M&G.

Eoghan in a gift shop swing.

Kav & Ca$$: Hello! We're Libera.

Kavana: And this is our new Christmas Album.

Michael: This year we're having a Christmas album which is going to be all Christmas-y.

Ralph: It's a unique sound. I mean we have lots of high notes.

Nano Ben: My favorite is "In Dulci Jubilo," cause it's very bouncy and jolly, and it's got lots of high parts.

Jude: We have little ones who can reach really high for our Christmas sound.

Cassius: In our concerts, at the moment, there's lots of different Christmas songs.

              We get to go to so many different places, and it's such an exciting experience.

Barney: It's really an amazing experience, because before you go on stage, you get this like really, really big buzz.

Michael: And sometimes you can get a bit nervous before a concert but also quite excited.

Cassius: Well, my favorite song is probably "White Christmas." It's just a very cheerful song. And it just reminds you of Christmas Day.

Jude: We hope we make this Christmas more special for our fans around the world, because even if they don't get to see us, they can enjoy at home listening to us.

Kavana: I think my favorite is "Carol of the Bells." It's like such a dramatic, fast-paced ???

Love, love, love, love, love the colors of this one!

"Winter Songs" CD/DVD

Libera's "Winter Songs" CD/DVD was released today in Japan! Our friend, Hagy, says that the DVD is of "Eternal Light," but it is a different version than we've ever seen before. It is the long-awaited video they took outside in a park. These are the photos Libera had shared with us back in September 2010. Lucky Japan! :D

Hagy took some screen captures of "Eternal Light" which you can see on her blog here. The boys all look sooo young compared to now!

Hope this album sells well and that we get to see this video on YouTube soon. Thank you, Hagy! Thank you, Libera! :)

I Got the Christmas Album CD!

So many great things in one day! First I get all these great pictures of the Cebu M&G from Yumiko and Jimmy. Now I get The Christmas Album! Happy November 1st! :D

The front of my beautiful CD. :)

The Christmas Album is available in the US starting today. You can find all the ordering information here. If you order through Amazon, I have included Libera's commission link.

Let's see if we can get them to #1! Right now the CD is on Amazon's Top 20 Classical Albums List. It's not listed on the Billboard Chart for November 5 yet. I'm sending out a Facebook status and e-mails that include the Amazon order link along with the YouTube video of their "Carol of the Bells" on ASAP Rocks. That oughta sell anyone on the CD. :D

The back of the CD

When you first open it, you see pretty snow-covered trees.

The CD opens to 4 sections. Section 1 has song, soloist & composer

 list with a pocket behind it for the picture/lyric cards.

Section 2 says "Merry Christmas from Libera"

with a slot for the silver snowflake ornament.

Section 3 gives production, instrumentalist & singers names.

Section 4 has the most important part - the CD. :D

The 16 picture cards with lyrics for each song printed on the back.

I love this album! :)

The Christmas Album #1 in Philippines!

The Philippines gave Libera a great welcome gift! Not just their warm greetings. Or their sunny weather. Or their screams at the Meet & Greet. Or their enthusiastic applause at the concert.

The Philippines gave Libera a #1 album! The Christmas Album entered the charts this week as Top-Selling Album Overall and Top-Selling Album Foreign! Congratulations Libera!

And what a great birthday for Josh! Happy 17th birthday! It's the best age so far!!! :D

Christmas Contest

UPDATED: October 21, 2011

October 20, 2011

EMI posted a video about a Christmas competition. It has Michael, Kavana, Nano Ben and Cassius. They're so cute! :D



Kavana: Hello, friends. We're Libera here in England, and we just wanted to let you know about our new CD "The Christmas Album."

Michael: We're very excited about it. It's our first-ever recording of all Christmas songs. We hope you'll help us to spread the Christmas cheer around the world.

Nano Ben: Here's how you can help. We have a contest with lots of great prizes from signed posters to your very own Libera robe.

Kavana: For more information and to enter, please visit LiberaChristmas.com. And have a blessed Christmas season.


Aaaahhh! This is awesome! You can win a Libera robe?!?!? The www.LiberaChristmas.com site is now up. The prizes are:


1 Libera choir robe ($85 value) - unless it goes on a Korean bear, I think that value is kind of low. lol

5 signed Libera hoodies ($65 value) - white ones so you can see their signatures? Or maybe black hoodies signed with silver pen! :)

25 signed Libera posters ($10 value) - wonder if it's a concert poster or Christmas CD advertising poster.


When you go to the web site, fill in your first name, e-mail, birth date, country, and 3 friends' e-mails to whom EMI US will e-mail information about Libera and the Christmas contest. Once you enter, EMI will send you a special video holiday greeting from Libera! :D

You can enter up to 5 times from October 20 - November 14, 2011. Winners will be notified by e-mail on or around November 18.

The contest is only open to residents of the US and Puerto Rico who are age 21 and over. If you're younger, maybe your parents can enter for you. I'm sort of sad about the country restriction. There are a lot of fans from other countries who would like to enter. My guess is that it's to boost sales of the CD in the US by having an e-mail advertising campaign in the US. We know the album is already doing well in the Philippines and should do well in the UK, but the US is a huge market.

Good luck to everyone! Can't wait to hear who wins! :D


UPDATE: EMI Classics US wrote to me:

Hello Libera Fans!

To celebrate the upcoming release of Libera’s new Christmas album, we’re running a contest with some great prizes – signed posters, Libera hoodies and an official Libera robe! We want to spread the word about the album to new Libera fans, so in order to enter we’re asking people to forward an email about the album and contest to three friends (note that we will NEVER spam entrants or the emails they provide, and we’ll only keep emails when people indicate they want to receive Libera news from us). To increase chances of winning, entrants can provide additional emails as well – every 3 emails forwarded equals an extra entry, max 5 entries per person). As a special “thank you”, all entrants will receive a holiday video greeting from the group!

The contest URL is: www.LiberaChristmas.com

For a video of the boys introducing the contest, please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDDiG-02Ri0
(Feel free to embed this!)

Ultimately we hope to get enough people to pre-order the album or buy it the week of November 1st so that we can get Libera their very first #1 album in the US Classical charts! We’re urging everyone to spread the word about the contest and new album on social media, using hashtag #LIBERA.

Best wishes, and happy holidays!
The EMI Classics US Team

PS - Due to legal restrictions, we’ve unfortunately have had to limit the contest to the United States, and ages 21 and up. We apologize to the Libera fans who are excluded as a result, and we hope to have other contests that will involve them soon.


UPDATE: EMI Music wrote on the Dreams forum:

Hi everyone,

In regards to the contest being limited to the United States - we did in fact do extensive research with our legal team on this and were very disappointed to find out that the laws around contests vary dramatically from country to country (even from state to state in the US). The legal preparation, signup monitoring and prize limitations required to make a contest truly global simply weren't feasible this time around.

We're as disappointed as you are that this contest couldn't be extended beyond the US, and we do promise that we will continue working towards a proper worldwide Libera contest. For now please accept our humble apologies, and we wish you all a wonderful holiday season.

And as always, thank you for your support of Libera and their recordings.

Sincerely,
The EMI Classics US Team

PS - To those of you in the Philippines, enjoy the concerts!

Libera Christmas CD

 Back of CD - Daniel, Carlos, Jakob & Dylan! :D

UPDATE: September 13, 17, 22, 30, October 7, 14

The UK release has been pushed back from November 7 to November 21! O_O  We now have updated prices for the Standard and Deluxe versions. Thank you to Fan de LoK for the links.

We now have larger, clearer pictures of the Deluxe CD set. The ornament is silver (not gold)! lol. There are picture and lyric cards with scenes from the UK, Canada and US tours. Some pictures we have seen before, but some are new! I cannot wait for this CD!!! :D

The Deluxe CD is now available for preorder on Amazon.com. The US release date is November 1. Not sure why the US gets it sooner than the UK. ??? And the Deluxe CD will be available in Canada through ShopEMI Canada. It will also be released November 1.

UPDATE: September 6

Amazon UK has a picture of the Deluxe CD. Awesome!!!!! According to Yuki, Tower Records Japan site says the Christmas tree decoration is a gold silver wreath. :) Can't wait to see what it looks like. Thanks to Jimmy Riddle for the notification and to Fan de LoK for the clear photo! :D

September 2:

The Christmas Album is starting to show up for preorders! Get your Christmas shopping done now! lol

                                            Standard           Deluxe         Release date

Amazon Japan                   1536 Yen         1268 Yen       November 1

CDWow Japan                                            1700 Yen       October 24

HMV Japan                        1584 Yen         1681 Yen        October 24

Tower Records Japan        1205 Yen         1279 Yen       October 24

Amazon US (Libera link)   $14.10             $17.99           November 1

ShopEMI Canada               $15.34 CDN    $20.12 CDN  November 1

Amazon UK (Libera link)  8.99 BPS          11.99 BPS     November 21


The song list has been released by Tower Records Japan! This is a fabulous list of songs! Can't wait to hear them! Thank you to Hagy for the info!

1.   Joy to the World
2.   Still, Still, Still
3.   Carol of the Bells
4.   Veni, Veni, Emmanuel
5.   Once In Royal David's City
6.   O Holy Night
7.   White Christmas
8.   Corpus Christi Carol
9.   In Dulci Jubilo
10. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
11. Sing the Story
12. Coventry Carol
13. The First Nowell
14. Jubilate Deo
15. While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
16. Lullabye

Christmas Promo Pics

We already saw this cute picture from an online article about the Manila concert. But thanks to Bullehynka, it is now high resolution and amazingly clear! She's the one who should be doing Libera's UK posters. :D And now there are more pictures from the photo shoot!

First there is this picture from Your Local Guardian in the UK. Thanks to Yuki for the link and to Bullehynka for making it high res! It looks like Eoghan, Jakob, Jude, Dylan and Kavana are doing the jump picture from High School Musical. :D The article has an interview with Mr. Philipp (Ben's dad), Kavana and Henry who says it was funny recording a Christmas album and taking pictures for it in the middle of the summer. Libera is hoping that the album hits #1 on the Christmas charts! I hope so, too! :)

There are even more pictures from the photo shoot on EMI's German web site. Thanks to Yuni for the link and to Bullehynka for making them high resolution.

Matthew, Cassius, Eoghan

Henry, Freddie, MJ, Jude

Jude, Eoghan, Jakob, Kavana, Dylan

Dylan, Kavana, Dylan, Jakob, Jude

Seriously, click on these pictures. You can see them clearer than if you met them in person! lol.

Christmas Album Song Samples

UPDATED: October 2, 3

If you don't live in the Philippines and so haven't gotten your Libera Christmas Album yet, ;) you can listen to MP3 samples on Amazon UK here. They are short, so they just make me want more. Thanks to Leslie for the link. And I'm noticing the different cover for the MP3 album! I love the frosty, icicly-ness of the standard CD cover, but the MP3 cover makes me think of Bethlehem and starry Christmas night. They're both great!

And now PinoyLiberian1 has upload a song sampler to YouTube that gives you about 1 minute of each song! Excellent! I'd listen to both sources, because they play different parts of the songs.



Almost all of these songs I've heard my whole life, but now they've all been "Liberated." It's a lot of beautiful harmonies but also really cool arrangements that make them fresh and new. It's great to see that Fiona Pears is playing violin on the album! We got to see her on the Libera 2010 US Tour and have missed her. And Tom Cully is listed as contributing behind the scenes! Cool! 

01. Joy to the World - Great harmonies, nice flow to the music.

02. Still, Still, Still - Want to hear Ralph's solo! Hannah described it as you lying under the stars in the Shepherds' Fields in Bethlehem. Can't say it any better than that. :)

03. Carol of the Bells - I LOVE THIS! I already loved the song, but the harmonies I'm hearing from Libera make it awesome.

04. Veni, Veni Emmanuel - Daniel's voice is soooo perfect! And I like that it's in Latin. 

05. Once In Royal David's City - Most of us are used to little Josh starting out this song on the Aled Jones video, but you gotta admit Eoghan has an amazing voice! Can't wait to hear all of this song!

06. O Holy Night - Another beautiful song with Ralph. Not sure who is singing the harmony with him. I like the tempo of Libera's version. Sometimes this song can drag a bit. Glad it's been "Liberated!"

07. White Christmas - Stefan sounds great! Guess not everyone gets a white (as in SNOW) Christmas. We usually do in Chicago, but I always have to go to Florida for Christmas, so I see it before and after. My dad sings, "I'm dreaming of a sandy, white beach Christmas." lol.

08. Corpus Christi Carol - This is a new song for me, but I'll take anything with Ralph and Mini James, separate or together, and learn to sing along. :)  Is it me, or do they sound especially great in this sample?!!!

09. In Dulci Jubilo - I want the piano accompaniment to this! Can you hear how cool this arrangement is?!!!

10. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Mini James and Ralph again. We heard this one before, but I love it. Hope, hope, hope you're still with Libera and visit the Philippines, James! Love your voice! :D

11. Sing the Story - We got to hear Luke solo during the US Tour, and now everyone else gets to hear how great he sings.

12. Coventry Carol - Wait til you hear Josh on this! It's so low and full. Just awesome! It's so different from younger boys' high voices we're used to hearing solo. I can't wait to hear how Ralph and Stefan sound with him, too!

13. The First Nowell - Freddie solos, but I can't hear him much on this sample. He sounded great in Canada and US 2011, so this should be great, too.

14. Jubilate Deo - Oh my gosh, flashback to the tour concerts! Jakob, Jakob, Jakob! I love your voice!

15. While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks - Cassius solos! Beautiful voice! Want to hear more!!!!!!

16. Lullabye - We heard this one before, but Josh's voice is so great. Add in Jakob and Ben. What more could you want? Um...the whole album!!! :D