Wednesday, February 21, 2007

RESUME OF FREDDIE FERNANDEZ

Freddie is almost a household word in Malaysia. Having spent most of his life in the limelight and at the forefront of the country’s entertainment industry, he has gone from strength to strength in terms of his achievements and contributions to the industry.

An Honours graduate in Economics from the University of Malaya, Freddie started his musical career whilst in University, working his way through college in the most enjoyable of manners, by making music with his mates in the Revolvers.

Upon graduation he served a short stint with the Government as Marketing Officer for the Malaysian Timber Industry Board, a job which took him all over the world in his portfolio as officer in charge of trade fairs and trade missions.

His love for music got the better of him and in the early 80’s he plunged full time into a career as composer, arranger and producer with his own company, Betarecs. With the recording industry badly hit by piracy, Freddie moved his focus to jingle production and in a few years was acclaimed “King of Jingles” by Malaysian Business magazine.

In 1989 he founded a body to protect composers and collect royalties on their behalf called MACP or Music Author’s Copyright Protection. In 1993, Freddie also founded the Malaysian version of the Grammy’s, called the AIM Awards, which have gone on to become the main awards for the music industry.

After a long stint as President of the Musicians’ Union, Freddie extended the scope of his association work through the establishment of a new association called Karyawan, or the Malaysian Artistes’ Association, which represents not only musicians but also artistes of all disciplines from singers, actors, dancers, comedians to songwriters and scriptwriters.

Karyawan is working closely with the government in trying to spearhead the recovery and growth of the local entertainment industry which has been badly hit by piracy and a slump in sales .

In 2003, Freddie was given the task of establishing the talent management arm of Astro, called Maestro Talent and Management. At the same time he was also deeply involved in developing the highly successful Akademi Fantasia program, which has since become one of the most watched and most successful programs on Malaysian television.

Its latest champion Mawi, has broken all records for the industry and sold more than 400,000 copies of his albums in the mere space of nine months.

The future beckons for Freddie and Maestro as they go about spearheading a new level of excitement and interest in the music and entertainment industry of Malaysia.

2 comments:

Tokai said...

The best part I realized is he was the man with best lyric for Hijaukuning Football Kedah-Biar jasa jadi Kenangan-writer for song.Wonder, is he relates with Ms. Irene Fernandez the Sg Petani born -NGO activist.

Unknown said...

Check this Guy out. He is real Big Time. He is another ex Revolvers from Kelang.

http://2plus.us/

click on Partners at the site then click on his image.

This is where it really all began.

I used to know him at school time.

Roobin Loh