Lea & the times of her life

When Lea Salonga sings, the Filipino people take a bow.

Her voice is a virtual national anthem — a call to pride for one’s race and the amazing talent of one’s people. Watching her perform on the international stage, singing Sun and Moon (from Miss Saigon), On My Own (from Les Misérables), Memory (from Cats), A Whole New World (from Aladdin) — whether with Simon Bowman or with Il Divo — leaves one choked-up and teary-eyed.

A hyperbole? Perhaps. But only in superlatives can one best describe the heavenly voice of this Laurence Olivier, Tony,  Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Aliw awardee. If radiant could describe sound — not just sight — it would describe Lea’s voice.

Lea is a giant of a 5-ft.-2-in. nightingale — a symphony of God’s benevolence, a mother’s faith, a father’s high standards, a mentor’s discipline, and a husband’s steadfast support. And Lea has responded to all her gifts by unwrapping each one and expressing gratitude in full measure.

Just listen to her — on stage, on your iPhone, iPod, iPad and CD player.

Lea makes time for her family despite her packed schedule. Photo by Manny Marcelo

Recently, Lea received the Aliw Lifetime Achievement award, making the 43-year-old ask her mother Ligaya (“Joy”): “Am I already that old, they’re giving me the Lifetime Achievement Award?”

To which her mother, who saw then three-year-old Lea’s potential as a singer when the pre-schooler would go up coffee tables and pretend she was performing on stage, responded, “No, Lea, you just happened to start really young.”

After nearly four decades singing — from a pinafore-clad Annie to an ao dai-clad Kim — Lea is still on top of her stage, hitting high notes in her career as well as in her personal life.

I asked Lea, who endorses Philip Stein watches, what she makes time for in her packed schedule.

Lea marries Robert Chien in 2004. Photo by Raymund Isaac

“My family. I think mostly that. I make time for being alone. I have to or else I’ll go crazy. I’m constantly surrounded by people, because what I do is very collaborative. As much as I love them all, I need time away from everybody. So I play video games, I read, I’ll be on the computer. I’ll do something wherein I don’t have to interact with another human being. It’s for my sanity.

“I make time for good theater or a really good movie. I make time to listen to music. Everything. My husband (Rob Chien) is into R&B. I’ve kind of opened my ears more to that. It’s not just the vocalists and Streisands of the world.

“I make time for dates with my husband. We have to make time for it whether it’s breakfast while our daughter Nicole is in school, we’ll do something or we’ll have lunch, just the two of us. We have our places that we like to go to, where we just enjoy. And now our daughter, when she’s with us, now she’s not allowed to have any technology at the table, no iPad, no nothing. So we have a conversation. She enforces it on us also. ‘Mom, Dad, you cannot touch your phones while we are at the table.’ We’re all just in conversation with one another.”

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When hands-on mom Ligaya realized her daughter had both the talent and the potential to be a professional singer, she carefully nurtured her daughter’s gift. She enrolled her in Repertory Philippines to train under legendary thespians Zenaida Amador and Baby Barredo. Seeing how Amador exacted perfection from the older Repertory talents was a lesson in 3D to the young and impressionable Lea. She was never scolded by the feisty Amador, but she got the picture when the director would chastise the older Repertory talents in colorful language she didn’t quite understand. She imbibed the discipline of the theater group. Ligaya likewise sent her to OB Montessori for her education, a school that made her bloom as well.

Her father Fil, a Navy officer, and a presidential scholar during his student says, demanded the best grades from Lea and her brother Gerard.

“If I came home with a grade of 97, my dad would ask, what happened to the other three percent?” recalls Lea. “My English is good because Dad said, you speak English, you speak it straight. Same with Tagalog. He didn’t encourage Taglish at all.”

Her mother Ligaya has always been, and still is, the nurturer.

“But she is also tough,” adds Lea. “When I was about nine, I recorded two songs for a single that my mom tried to sell to established recording companies. And they said, ‘No, she’s a kid. Who would buy a kid’s record?’ But my mom wouldn’t take no for an answer. So she set up our own recording company. She would fill the trunk of her station wagon with my vinyl records and sell the singles to stores in Raon. She would take down orders herself, and then one day, she started to get calls for refills! It turns out my record filled a void. There were parents looking for records for their children. So you could say my mom launched my recording career. She had such unwavering faith in my voice and talent.”

 Today, Lea is also one of the best-selling Filipino artists of all time, having sold over five million copies of her albums worldwide.

Though her mother or her manager no longer has to go door to door to sell her CDs, and Lea lives life with the sunny disposition of Annie and Princess Jasmine — she, too, has had her share of sundowns.

“You have to experience a lot of life in order to sing about it,” she says softly.

 (To be concluded)

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