#ForteAllDay: The Multicultural Tenors Who Captured the Hearts of Online America

Sep 9, 2013
9:51 PM

I’m biased. And it’s for obvious reasons.

My brother Fernando Varela is part of FORTE, the tenor group entering Tuesday night’s Top 12 on “America’s Got Talent” as one of the Acts to Watch. The journey of the group the Latino Rebels have designated our “Official Multicultural Tenor Trio” has been beyond the wildest dreams of Fernando, Josh Page, Sean Pannikar. With an assist by  Hanna Ryu, this is all about #ForteAllDay, as my 10-year-old says (apologies to the Chicago Bears, but we plan to use this hashtag for a while as well).

FORTE (l-r): Fernando Varela, Sean Pannikar, Josh Page (Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

(Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

As the boys enter the next round (I can say that since I am 44), a brief video recap:

The Auditions (300K+ official AGT YouTube Views)

The Second Round (180K+ official AGT YouTube Views)

The Third Round (I was in the 4th row with my sister) (220K+ official AGT YouTube Views)

The Semifinals (200K+ official AGT YouTube Views)

Tomorrow, everyone I know—from my family to my friends, to the first people who supported Fernando online five years ago when two brothers decided to try this thing called “Twitter,” to all the countless friends we have made over the years—will be pulling and voting for FORTE. The response has been crazy fun.

So, I am asking for you help. The boys need your vote. You can RSVP event my sister created as a reminder, and you can vote here. And yeah, FORTE shared this photo as well, in case you needed another reminder.

Follow them on Twitter or give them a like on Facebook. You can say that you knew them when, because I have no doubt that Fernando, Josh, and Sean will conquer the world with their talent.

fortevote

Vote, vote, and vote.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Julio (Julito) Ricardo Varela (@julito77) founded LatinoRebels.com in May, 2011 and proceeded to open it up to about 20 like-minded Rebeldes. His personal blog, juliorvarela.com, has been active since 2008 and is widely read in Puerto Rico and beyond. He pens columns on LR regularly. In the past year, Julito represented the Rebeldes on CBS’ Face the NationNPR,  UnivisionForbesand The New York Times. Currently, he is a digital producer for Al Jazeera America’s The Stream. The views expressed in any of the columns writte by Julito on this page do not reflect the editorial stance of Latino Rebels or Al Jazeera America. His opinions are his own and his alone.