He likes the pop princess in Sarah Geronimo and the angst and rough poetry of the band Daughtry. He loves to drink beer, cook pasta and Asian food, play poker, and go to the beach, the park and the gym.

Most of all, he loves the passion and intensity of Rachmaninoff and the lilting playfulness of Chopin. 

And like the typical bagets, Oliver Salonga, 23, fleets through the universe like a carefree, cheerful spirit that wants to embrace life to the full and hold it close to his heart.

A half-hour before his first solo piano recital last June 11 at the PhilAm Life Theater with only a handful of people seating in the auditorium, Oliver Salonga’s mood and conversation swing from casual to nervous.

“How many people are out there?” he asked, refusing to peek through the curtains, wringing clammy hands. “Ten?”

Twelve was a closer estimate, and Oli, as friends and family call him, sighed almost inaudibly. Later, while enjoying a feast of gambas in crab fat and lechon kawali at a nearby restaurant, Oli said that he did not mind that not many people came to watch him play. Nor did he blame the rains and flash floods in Metro Manila that probably stopped more music lovers from coming to watch him.

“I just went into the music and enjoyed myself,” he said, relishing each bite of the sinful pork fat and equally sinful crab aligue sauce of his gambas. “I really didn’t pay attention to how many people where there in the auditorium. I just concentrated on making the people who came happy (with my music).”

But shortly before he went on stage to perform pieces from the classical masters—Mozart’s Twelve Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman” and his Piano Sonata in C Major; Rachmaninoff’s Piano Sonata in B flat Minor; Ravel’s La Vaise, un poeme choregraphique; Prokofiev’s Sonata no. 7 in B flat major—and two encore numbers—Scarlatti’s Sonata in F minor and Haydn’s Sonata in E Major—Oli ate about two dozen bananas.

“These contain potassium and potassium is supposed to calm the nerves,” he said, referring to the bananas.

He also went to the bathroom a lot--to pee.

“Of course, I was nervous,” he said later. “I was imagining that a thousand things could go wrong.”
Nothing, however, did go wrong.

The audience, which swelled to about a hundred, loved Oli and listened in rapture to this boy wonder who created awesome, wonderful sounds on the grand piano, gleefully. Performing a few years ago as the soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor with the Sydney Symphony  Orchestra under the baton of George Ellis, Oli got a standing ovation.

“My son is like a small child,” observed Oli’s mother Aleli.

Mrs. Salonga said she doesn’t know where Oli got his talent.

“I’m an accountant, and his father Joseph is a printer,” she said. “We’re not related to Lea Salonga.”
Oli was seven the first time he sat down and played the piano.

“At first, it was his sister Roxanne whom I enrolled at a neighborhood studio for piano lessons for the summer,” she recalled. “Oli just tagged along with her. One day, the teacher asked him if he wanted to play the piano.”

After his first piano lesson, Oli’s teacher told Mrs. Salonga that she had to buy a piano because her son was “extraordinary.”

“We then bought our first piano, a Lyric upright on installment,” she said.

Until this day, the Salonga family has yet to own a baby grand.

Why piano and why not basketball?

“Why not?” Oli quipped. “No one among my playmates teased me about playing the piano.”

High school at the Philippine High School for the Arts in Makiling was a turning point for Oli. It was then that he decided that he would be a pianist instead of a doctor or a lawyer. Sending the video of his graduation recital to the Lynn University in Florida as his audition and filling out the application form, Oli was immediately accepted by the university on a full scholarship. He pursued his Master's Degree in Piano Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and “under the guidance of 2001 Van Cliburn Silver Medalist Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Oli was awarded the Sadie Zellen Piano Prize for his superior talent.” He went on to win the gold medal in the 2008 Joenju International Competition in South Korea. Oli was also a two-time first prize winner of the National Music Competition for Young Artists or NAMCYA.

To this day, Mrs. Salonga wonders where Oli got his talent.

“That is still the big question,” she said.

But the bigger question is where Oli would go after he completes his Artist’s Diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music where he continues his studies.

“I am rethinking my options,” he admitted, “and maximizing my resources. I think I’ll find a way. I know I won’t really survive here (as a concert pianist). I could get a teaching job.”

He could also collaborate with pop artists, he said.

“And as much as possible, while I’m finishing my Artist’s Diploma, I would join competitions and perhaps get (professional) management by winning these competitions,” Oli said.

Oli has realized that it’s a different ballgame here for a piano player, no matter how superb.

“Wala. No support from the government. Lack of audience. Lack of marketing,” he rued.

But Oli’s young and wonderful. Setting aside these dark thoughts, he turned to worry about another matter: How he could find a roommate to share his $800 a month apartment in Cleveland?

“You know, nahihiya nga ako sa parents ko, the way they support me,” he said. “I don’t know how they manage to send me my allowance every month.”

That is another big question, one that Mrs. Salonga could also not answer. It’s enough that Oli plays beautifully, that he’s happy, and driven.

“What do you think?” asked Mrs. Salonga after the recital. “Should Oli have been a doctor?”
Oli, a doctor? That’s a ridiculous notion.