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Lea SalongaThe Story of Lea SalongaLea Salonga is a multi-awarded Filipino singer and actress. She is known for her theatre acting and her singing voice for different animated films. She garnered different local and international awards and released her albums either as gold or platinum in no time. She was born on February 22, 1971 as Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga by her father Feliciano Genuino Salonga and Ligaya Alcantara Imutan, her mother. She is the eldest child and lives in Angeles City in her first six years then moved to Manila. Gerard Salonga, a composer is her brother and Jovito Salonga the Senate President is her grandfather. She can be identified with her small deep dimple near the right corner of her mouth that appears every time she smiles. She studied at the Operation Brotherhood Montessori School in Greenhills, Metro Manila. She attended her college in Ateneo de Manila University and in Fordham University when she was in New York. Lea started as a child star in the Philippines. She starred the musical “The King and I” by the Repertory Philippines at the age of seven, became a lead star in “Anne” and joined other productions such as “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof”, “Fiddler On The Roof”, ”he Rose Tatoo”, “The Sound of Music”, “The Goodbye Girl”, “Paper Moon” and “The Fantasticks”. Small Voice, her first album was recorded at the age of ten and received a gold certification. Happiness was her first collaboration with Gerard Salonga, her younger brother. Her second album entitled Lea was released in 1988 when she was 17 years old. Salonga hosted her own talk show, “Love, Lea” and participated in “That‘s Entertainment”, teen variety show of German Moreno. She acted several films as Tropang Bulilit, Like Father, Like Son, Ninja Kids, Captain Barbell and Pik Pak Boom. She also made an opening act of the concerts of Menudo and Stevie Wonder in 1985 and 1988 respectively. In her young age, she already received a FAMAS Award for best Child Actress and won three awards as Best Child performer in Aliw. Lea was best known for her remarkable performance as Kim in the musical Miss Saigon in 1989 when she was only 17 years old. She was asked to sing several songs to test her voice quality during auditions and the judges was not wrong in choosing her for the role. She won several awards for that performance alone such as Tony Awards, Laurence Olivier Awards, Drama Desk Awards and Theatre World Awards. Since then, several musical theatre productions and concerts were offered to her. She performed her homecoming concert on 1990 in Manila entitled “A Miss Called Lea”. Salonga played Eponine, a street waif of Les Miserables in 1993. She later flew to Los Angeles and sung the song “A Whole New World” of Disney’s Aladdin. Her voice was used as Princess Jasmine together with Brad Kane. In the same year, her self-titled international debut was released under Atlantic Records. The album went to platinum in Philippines selling almost 3 million copies worldwide. In 1994, she performed and starred several musical theatre productions in the Philippines and Singapore. 1995 was a busy year for her. She had flown back to U.S. for the role of Geri Riordan, an 18-year old adopted Vietnamese American child of Redwood Curtain. She then went back to Philippines for “Sana Maulit Muli” with Aga Muhlah, a Filipino matinee idol. In 1998, she released her album Lea…In Love and By Heart under BMG Pilipinas. Both albums reached multiple platinum statuses in the Philippines. Her singing voice were used as Fa Mulan in the Disney’s Mulan in 1998 and also in Mulan II in 2004. She also performed in concert as The Homecoming Concert, The Millennium Concert, The Best of Manila and Songs from the Screen. Lea closed the year 2000 with her Miss Saigon Homecoming through Manila production at Cultural Center of the Philippines. On 2002, she played the role of a Chinese immigrant of Flower Drum song. Salonga held her all-Filipino concert named Songs from Home in 2003. She performed several shows on her return to U.S. and was followed by a Christmas concert called “Home for Christmas” in the Philippines. The following year, 2004, she staged the Manila production Baby as Lizzie. On January 10, 2004, she was married to Robert Charles Chien, a Chinese-Japanese managing director of an entertainment software company in Los Angeles, California. In 2006, their daughter was born on May 16 and named Beverly Nicole after Lea’s mother-in-law, Beverly Chien. She closed the 15th Asian Games held in Doha, Qatar with her song “Triumph of the One” at Khalifa Stadium. It was announced that on 2007, she’ll be back in Les Miserables now as Fantine on March 6 but started on March 2 four days before the planned date. After the role, she performed 2 events: her singing of four songs at the US Military Academy Band’s concert in West Point and her own concert at the Tarrytown Music Hall in New York. She had her scheduled performances for the rest of the year of 2007 and 2008. This includes a Christmas presentation in Manila and concert outside of the Philippines as California, Hawaii Hong Kong and Guam. She played the lead of Broadway Asia Entertainment’s Cinderella. She released her first studio album in seven years entitled Inspired which is certified platinum. Albums
Awards
Songs from Lea Salonga
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