Nazer Salcedo: From small town to big city

MANILA, Philippines - All-around performer Nazer Salcedo was born in Sara, Iloilo, where the family owned a big farm which his father wanted him to manage. But the youth felt he was destined for other things, so he enrolled in Biology class at West Visayas State University, intending to become a doctor.

But we are getting ahead of our story.

He started as a dancer. “Ever since sumasayaw talaga ako,” he recalls. “Basta pag nasa stage iba ang feeling ko.”

At school, he joined a dance troupe headed by Cris Barrera, a contemporary of National Artist Ramon Obusan, and he flourished here. By 1990, the group merged with a choral group and they were required to learn how to sing and vocalize.

And the choir trainer informed him: “You have a voice.” Nazer was not even aware of that, focused as he was on dancing: “Huh? May voice ba ako?” Yes! His classmates then entered him in a literary musical competition and, lo and behold, he won. His winning piece was The Holy City, a beautiful hymn about Jerusalem which you might hear from time to time on DZFE, 98.7FM, the classical music station.

Other awards followed in kundiman competitions in Manila and Western Visayas. Soon he became a voice student of opera diva Fides Cuyugan-Asensio at the UP College of Music and — voila! — he emerged a tenor who could scale the high notes.

So he could sing and dance. There remained only the acting field to conquer.

This he learned at The Actors’ Company of Tanghalang Pilipino, the resident drama group of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. For, by 1998, wanting to become a professional performer (and later to study directing), he left his home province and came to Manila.

Nazer has appeared in operas (May Day Eve, Noli Me Tangere) but in recent years he has been busy in musical theater, appearing in productions by Tanghalang Pilipino, Repertory Philippines and Dulaang UP. He has sung and played the roles of a scheming friar (Padre Salvi), an expansionist monarch (in Orosman at Zafira) and rebel (Cabesang Tales).

He also appeared as a lawyer in Kung Mawawala Ka, a TV soap directed by Joel Lamangan, and as a police chief in Pilipinas, a movie starring Maricel Soriano and also directed by Lamangan.

With the current Harana (to be restaged by the Philippine Opera Company in October), Nazer returns to his first love, dancing, while singing one Filipino song after another together with his colleagues.

Harana is cultural entertainment with advocacy: “It is a good avenue to educate young minds on traditional Filipino music arranged in a modernized away, but with the melody still there. It is a good objective for us singers and performers.”

Nazer is guided by the philosophy of “no expectation, just do your best.”

He explains: “Sometimes if you claim ganito ako this is me parang there is constant pressure to prove yourself. But if you don’t expect anything, ginagawa mo lang yung gusto mo, yung mahal mo, yun ang mas magandang kinakalabasan. Mas relax ka mag-perform, kaysa doon ka naka-focus sa title mo. I am a tenor, etc. But if you don’t have any expectation, you are more flexible.”

The performing artist (and budding director), laughing, concludes: “It has been a long experience from being a simple boy in Iloilo to now…in (Big Apple) Manila; a tumultuous and happy experience!”