Left: Angeli Flores pursues dreams to international shores as member of new Pan-Asian girl group Blush. Right: Angelie Flores (center) with the rest of Blush: (L-R) Natsuko Danjo, Alisha Budhrani, Ji Hae Lee and Victoria Chan . (Photo by Ed Ramos)

MANILA, Philippines – If there’s one thing about “Glee” that aspiring performers could truly take to heart, it’s the first season battle cry: “Don’t stop believing!” Indeed, if 21-year-old Angeli Flores stopped chasing her dreams, she probably would not have found herself in this exciting new adventure.

As part of the first-ever Pan Asian girl group Blush, whose members come from all over the region, Angeli—former “Pinoy Idol” top 11 contestant and a finalist of “Star for a Night”—is still in disbelief. But during the press launch of the group in April, Angeli tells Bulletin Entertainment, “Sobrang honored [ako to be part of this]… dati sumasali lang ako sa mga contests, and most of them, talo.”

“Mahilig po talaga akong kumanta mula nung bata ako, simula ng 16 years old ako, kumakanta na po ako sa band,” Angeli shares. In fact, she was still a member of two local bands prior to joining Blush. Now, she gushes, “Sobrang saya ko na hindi lang Philippines kundi international na ‘yung narrating ko. Parang hindi ako makapaniwala!”

Blush is actually a project of FarWest Entertainment, a company headed by Chairman and CEO, Jon Niermann, who is also the host of the Asia-based talk show, “Asia Uncut.” With his company’s clear goals of “finding great Asian talent and bringing it to the West,” they launched an Asia-wide search back in 2010 to form this “super group,” as they call it.

After a grueling process of elimination—which involves bootcamp type, intensive performance training sessions and an almost reality show-based series of weekly cuts—Niermann explains that they had about 3,500 submission when they launched the competition, mostly through announcements in drama schools, singing academies, online and by word-of-mouth.

Angeli, in fact, reveals that, “Actually, ‘yung search narinig ko lang siya sa Facebook, then sabi ko, ‘Okay, sige I’ll send my video.” It was only during the live audition held at the Manila Peninsula here in the Philippines in 2010 did she realize that this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill contest. “Simula noon, sobrang, feeling ko sa sarili ko, this is it!”

After enduring six days a week of waking up at 7a.m., doing one hour’s worth of exercise, dancing for three hours in the morning and doing song-and-dance choreography for five hours after lunch, the five girls representing China, Korea, the Philippines, Japan and India had to compete with the girls from their countries for the final spot. There were also performances every Friday at bootcamp, after which one girl from each country was sent home until they reached the final five.

But if that seemed like a major challenge to go through, Angeli actually had a bigger scare before she even got to Hong Kong to attend the bootcamp as a finalist. As she was invited along with the other Filipino finalists to Hong Kong, the hostage fiasco in Luneta happened, sometime in August 2010.

According to her, they had a run-in with the Hong Kong immigration. “10 hours kami doon, then pinabalik kami sa Pilipinas,” she said of their detention at the Hong Kong airport. Several days later they flew back there, only to be held at the airport once again. “Second time, natulog po ako sa couch. Hindi pa rin po nila ako pinapasok. Hinahanapan pa rin po nila ako ng kung ano-ano, iba-iba every time.”

With about three of them stuck here, the organizers decided to fly to Manila (with them were three other Filipino singers who were already in Hong Kong). Angeli relates, “Parang gumawa po ng mini-academy dito. Tapos nagkaroon po sila ng contest between Filipina girls for just that week.” From the six, they were narrowed down to three girls, “And then ‘yung tatlong ‘yun, tinulungan po ng organizers. So ‘yun, naka-pasok na rin ako dun,” Angeli shares.

But all’s well that ends well, and Angeli has now found herself in the threshold of an international career. Along with her, Blush is composed of Victoria Chan (28) from China, Ji Hae Lee (25) from Korea, Natsuko Danjo (20) from Japan and Alisha Budhrano (19) from India.

Having had their first trip to the Philippines in April, Angeli says she took the girls around and had them eat Filipino foods, especially balut. Although they have grown to treat each other like sisters, Angeli notes that because they all came from different countries and cultures, “In the beginning it was so hard, kasi hindi mo alam kung, baka mamaya hindi pala okay sa kanila ‘yan, or magalit sila [about something], ganun. Pero sa time went by, naging comfortable na kami sa isa’t-isa.

We’re always together since we live in a house together.”

After the visit to the Philippines, Blush had gone back to Hong Kong, then flew off to Los Angeles by the end of April. They are also currently are putting the final touches on their first few

singles, three of which were performed for the local press during their visit. The songs were all co-produced in Hong Kong by nine-time Grammy Award winning producer Tal Herzberg and Steve Schnur, Chairman Emeritus of the Grammy Foundation.

Aside from such heavyweights in the music business, Blush is also supported by some of the most respected names in the music industry like Alex Gaudino, Sander Kleinenberg, JXL, Diplo, Tiesto, Manny Maroquin, Benny Benassi and Fedde Le Grand.