Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Filo of American Idol Season 23

American Idol returns Sunday, March 9 with Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie returning as judges. They’ll be joined by Carrie Underwood, who replaces Katy Perry.

Here’s more about Filo.

* He’s Filopatir Ebid, an accomplished singer from Cairo, Egypt now living in California. And he’s already been revealed as one of the three platinum ticket recipients for Season 23.

* That happened during ABC’s New Year’s Eve broadcast when Ryan Seacrest and Carrie Underwood introduced Filo on air, then surprised him with a platinum ticket. Carrie calls his vocal talent “amazing” in the clip.

* “What just happened? This is insane,” Filo responded. The ticket will allow him to skip the first round of competition in Hollywood Week.

* Filo told his alma mater, University of the Pacific, that when he was invited to appear on New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan and Carrie, he expected to be one of several contestants there to promote American Idol. “I only realized what was going on when I looked around and did not find any other contestants around me.”

* Filo will arrive on the Idol stage with an impressive resume already in hand. In addition to graduating from the University of Pacific Conservatory of Music, he completed a master’s program in contemporary music at the Berklee College of Music.

* He spent at year studying at Berklee’s Valencia campus in Spain. Check out his wonderful cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” from his time there below.

* He was also selected as one of the soloists featured in a Happy Holidays from Berklee cover of “My Favorite Things.” Filo’s stunning solo starts at the 2:52 mark of this video.

* While at the Conservatory of Music, Filo performed at the college president’s inauguration dinner and had starring roles in a pair of productions — Macheath in “The Threepenny Opera” and the Baker in “Into the Woods.” Both productions won awards form the National Opera Association.

* In a recent into, Filo credited his time at the Conservatory for teaching him a valuable lesson: “The Conservatory helped me train a muscle that would serve me for the rest of my career, which is to say yes to every opportunity that comes my way and worry about how to make it happen later. This tactic helped me push myself in ways that I never thought possible.”

* While he doesn’t appear to have released music yet, Filo is working on it, promising “new music coming soon” on his Instagram.

Filo on social media:
Instagram
TikTok
Facebook
YouTube