Alfred Fonoti-Fuimaono, left, their mother Alofa Tulasi Fonoti, Jordan Fonoti-Fuimaono and Faamanu Fonoti-Fuimaono.<\/p>\n
The singers were selected in front of a live audience in Wellington on Sunday by internationally acclaimed American mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade after two semi-final concerts. <\/p>\n
Baritone Faamanu, 26, said hearing his name called first took a few seconds to sink in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was nervous. It took me maybe five seconds to process that my name was said. Then I was really stoked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked across at my brothers, then into the audience and saw my family all cheering. I was quite emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tenor Jordan, 25, described the announcement as exciting and overwhelming.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was such a high standard of singers\u2026 when she announced my name, I just felt reassured that I was doing the right things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt a sense of pride, but also nervousness, and just did a quick little prayer and thanked God for his blessing, because we give all our glory to him. It\u2019s always been a thing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although they will compete against each other in Saturday\u2019s final, the brothers said singing was one area where rivalry takes a back seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pretty competitive when it comes to absolutely anything else,\u201d Faamanu said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to singing … we automatically switch to supporting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean the banter disappears entirely.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand that there\u2019s a time to joke and have fun, like we do,\u201d Faamanu said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut we also know the seriousness of the competition and how important it is for everyone, and so we\u2019ll lock in when it comes close at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a competition where there\u2019s almost $100,000 up for grabs, we will do our best to try and win, and of course, winning means also beating each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each brother has international ambitions.<\/p>\n
Faamanu will move to London in September after earning a full scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music, while Jordan hopes to secure a place in a young artist programme at a European opera house.<\/p>\n
Winning would help make those dreams possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s essentially a golden ticket,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n
Before then, though, there is one more family contest to settle.<\/p>\n
Asked who usually wins when the brothers compete, Faamanu laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would all say ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Kiri Te Kanawa Song Quest final is at Wellington\u2019s Michael Fowler Centre on Saturday. Finalists perform alongside the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by NZ Opera general director Brad Cohen. <\/p>\n
Tickets are still available, from $39. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alfred Fonoti-Fuimaono, left, their mother Alofa Tulasi Fonoti, Jordan Fonoti-Fuimaono and Faamanu Fonoti-Fuimaono. The singers were selected in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[23562,3471,20438,8813,156,68793,9850,2082,111,139,69,1118,90,13807,58660,8628,223,810],"class_list":["post-516917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-23562","tag-among","tag-brothers","tag-competing","tag-entertainment","tag-finalists","tag-flaxmere","tag-for","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-prizes","tag-quest","tag-song","tag-the","tag-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}