Dulce (singer)

In 2003, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Aliw Awards. That same year, she played Aling Saling in the first run of the musical Himala at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). She returned to the musical theater stage in 2008 where she played Motormouth Maybelle in a local production of Hairspray also at the CCP.

From 1991 to 2004, Dulce's rendition of Constancio de Guzman’s Maalaala Mo Kaya served as the theme song of the television drama anthology of the same name.

In 1987, Dulce placed first runner-up with Nonoy Tan’s entry “Langit - Kung Kaya Ko Kaya Mo Rin” at the ABU Popular Song Contest in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The following year, she won the Grand Prize at the Asia Pacific Singing Competition where she sang Memory. Dulce auditioned for the role of Gigi in Miss Saigon when the producers first came to Manila. She was, however, unable to proceed with the audition due to acute pharyngitis. When the production team came back in 1990, she auditioned again and was instructed to fly to New York City. In New York, Cameron Mackintosh reportedly told her that she was "over-qualified" for the small role that was open and that it would be a waste of talent. Claude-Michel Schönberg is said to have commented that her voice "is like a Boeing 747 taking off".

In the 1980s, there was an unofficial ban imposed on Dulce by several recording executives. During this time, she had joined the Philippine government's "Balik Saya" musical caravan singing theme songs of local movies in the United States and Canada. Recording executives, however, would block other deals she would make calling her "too rebellious".

In 1979, Dulce recorded her most famous song Ako Ang Nasawi, Ako ang Nagwagi ("I Had Been Defeated, I Had Won"). The song was sent by its composer, Canseco, to compete at the Metropop Song Festival but lost. Later that year, Dulce was sent to Hong Kong to compete at the Asian Singing Competition using an English - translated version (adaptation, “I Am Not Crying Over You”) of the song as her performance piece. She, however, decided at the last minute to scrap the English translation and sing it in its original Tagalog form. She won the grand prize of the competition and later recounted that her win was the event that changed her life.

In the early 1970s, she auditioned for Tawag ng Tanghalan but was initially rejected in her first attempt as she was still underaged. When she finally got to enter the competition, she became a weekly and then monthly champion but failed to make it to the grand championship. After the competition, she stayed in Manila for five months, performing covers of songs by Shirley Bassey, among others, and had occasional stints in bars and restaurants around downtown Manila, Quezon City and Laguna. She returned to Cebu with her mother but left and came back to Manila at age 16 where she worked as a singer at a club-restaurant owned by a "controversial public official" who had abused her. It was in this club-restaurant, however, where Llamedo was discovered by the composer George Canseco who was searching for a singer to sing his theme for the 1978 film Miss Dulce Amor, Ina starring Lorna Tolentino. Considered to be her big break, from then on, Llamedo became known by her famous stage name Dulce.

Maria Teresa Magdalena Abellare Llamedo-Cruzata (born July 22, 1961), professionally known as Dulce (Tagalog pronunciation: [dʊlˈsɛ]), is a Filipino singer and actress.

Llamedo was born to a poor family of musicians on July 22, 1961 in Villa Bulsita, a sitio of Barangay Bulacao in Pardo, Cebu City. Her father, Leoncio, was a carpenter who played the double bass in the village band while her mother, Andrea, was a dress-maker who sang in their local chapel. She is the sixth of eight siblings having four sisters and three brothers.