My homeschooled teenager, Yanthy, released 10 new singles via Distrokid this October and November. These singles are part of his debut album titled Christmas Hymns for Him, which was officially launched today on the First Sunday of Advent.

We were blessed that Yanthy has the full support of our current Parish Priest, Monsignor Melchor David. He allowed us to show the video trailer of Yanthy’s Christmas album after the 8:30 AM Mass in our parish and share about this passion project.

The album Christmas Hymns for Him is Yanthy’s Grade 8 homeschool project for the school year 2022-2023. He made his own musical arrangements of some of the oldest Christmas songs ever made and performed them on the piano. He recorded all ten singles in his album from home. He was also the one who did the sound engineering of these singles using GarageBand with the help and guidance of his dad.

To enable Yanthy to achieve all these, we hired music coaches and teachers who taught and guided Yanthy while working on his project. Among them was a good friend of mine from college, Hanzel Estrella, a composer, singer, musical arranger, voice coach, and former Madrigal Singer from the UP College of Music. Yanthy had online lessons on music theory and making musical arrangements with him.

While working on his last few singles, he also had piano lessons under Kidz Symphony by Teacher Vell. He brushed up on his sight-reading skills while experimenting with his own musical arrangements and renditions for some of the most popular traditional Christmas carols.

Yanthy released his first four singles via Distrokid last October, a few days before his 14^th birthday. His debut single Silent Night was released on October 6. This was followed by O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, O Come, All Ye Faithful, and Away in a Manger.

This was a monumental achievement for his first year as a teenager! That’s why we had a special celebration for his birthday this year. You may read the details here.

Then, he released 6 more singles to complete his album this November by the grace and mercy of God.

It has been a humbling, growing, and learning opportunity for Yanthy! He went through a lot of challenges working on the singles for his album. Sometimes, he had to record over 5 or 10 times for one single before coming up with the best version. For his last single, Mary’s Boy Child, he made 22 recordings before he was able to, finally, polish his version. That does not include yet the many practice sessions before each recording. Wow! That is really hard work for a child!

But through this project, Yanthy’s passion for his music and drive for excellence was manifested.

I was actually amazed that Yanthy was able to rise to my challenge and he finished all 10 singles in just 2 short months!

All of Yanthy’s singles are now live and available for listening on at least 20 music platforms worldwide including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music.

Yanthy would not be able to work on this project if he was not homeschooled. Truly, homeschooling has been a great blessing for Yanthy and our family. Through homeschooling, we are able to choose and invest time and treasure in projects that are aligned with our faith, our values, our priorities, and most especially, our children’s core gift.

God has blessed Yanthy with an amazing gift in music! I’m so grateful that we were able to discover it while he was still young and that Yanthy chose to use his giftedness to serve God and His Church.

As parents, I believe that it is our responsibility to help our children discover their God-given gifts, develop them, and guide them on when, how, and for what they should use them.

This Christmas album was produced by us, his parents. It’s one of our ways of supporting him and helping him nurture his talent in music.

Nine years ago, Yanthy taught himself to play the piano when he was only 5 years old. Around a year later, we hired a licensed piano teacher to give him formal piano lessons after we observed that he was determined to learn the instrument. At 7 years old, he started serving as a church pianist for daily evening Masses and Sunday afternoon Masses at Mary, Mother of Good Counsel Parish in Paranaque. He continues to serve as a pianist in our parish now that children are again allowed to go back to church.

You may read more about Yanthy from the award-winning e-book titled YANTHY: God’s Little Pianist that I authored and won in the Cardinal Sin Catholic Book Awards.

You may also follow Yanthy on Facebook and YouTube. Click here to go to Yanthy’s official YouTube Artist Channel.

I am so proud of what Yanthy has accomplished at such a young age. But I am prouder of the kind of person that he has become, all these years offering his time and talent in the service of our God and His Church.

In all these blessings and favors, we give back the glory and praise to God who is the Source of all good things and gifts!