Paolo began his choral experience only upon entering high school at the Ateneo de Manila in 1995 when he joined its Glee Club. On his fourth year with that group, he was accepted to join the Ateneo College Glee Club under conductors Joel Navarro and Jonathan Velasco for its European Tour in 2000.

Paolo has since shared his musicianship by assisting in several choral activities, such as giving workshops to youth and college choirs, adjudicating quartet examinations and school competitions, and helping conductors build repertoire for beginning choirs. He is also a composer and arranger of contemporary choral music. His work, Missa Brevis for treble voices (2001) was premiered by the Mandaluyong Children’s Choir under Sebastian Trinidad with soloists Mark Anthony Carpio and Maria Katrina Saporsantos. His arrangement of the traditional spiritual All Night, All Day, premiered by the Philippine Madrigal Singers, has also been sung by an Italian choir.

Paolo holds a Diploma in Creative and Performing Musical Arts major in Asian Music from the University of the Philippines College of Music. To sustain his interest in music research, he took several units in Musicology and plays traditional instruments, such as the Maguindanaon kulintang, the Kalinga tongali (nose flute), the Japanese koto and the Indonesian slenthem and gender. He has composed new melodies for the Javanese gamelan.

Paolo also dabbles in solo voice performance as a bass-baritone. His mentors include Vina Dominguez Gonzales, Maestra Salvacion Oppus-Yñiguez, and John Pamintuan. He was also one of the last students of National Artist for Music Prof. Andrea Veneracion before her illness. He has independently released an album of Filipino songs dedicated to his late mother, Tess Cordero-Pardo, entitled Lagi Kitang Naaalala with Franco Maigue assisting on guitar. He has essayed the role of Sarastro in the U.P. College of Music’s production of W. A. Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Presently, Paolo sings with two choirs, Anima, for whom he also writes choral music, and The Chamber Choir of Asia, a choir of selected choir conductors and seasoned singers by invitation. He is a faculty member of the Madz Music School at Arts in the City, Bonifacio Global City, where he teaches piano, voice, kulintang, music literature and music theory.