Lea Salonga started singing around the house in her native Philippines when she was three, and for over 50 years, she hasn’t stopped using her voice which has been described as “golden,” “pristine” and “as sparkling as a Baccarat crystal.”
Songs like “On My Own” from Les Misérables, “A Whole New World” from Aladdin and “Reflection” from Mulan catapulted Salonga to Broadway and Disney royalty and helped her gain a Tony Award and two Grammy nominations.
Salonga’s “Stage, Screen and Everything in Between Tour” comes to the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda on Saturday night, showcasing those songs and many other familiar favorites — a mix of her songs and covers.
Salonga talked with WTOP before her Thursday night show in Amherst, Massachusetts.
She said she was looking forward to going back to the Strathmore, which is one of her favorite venues.
“It just made me happy to be in that room and be able to sing in it, and the resonance in there is just so incredible. And everyone was so nice,” she said. The singer said that she hopes that her enjoyment on stage spills out over to the audience, adding that live performances have elements of the unexpected.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and it doesn’t get old,” Salonga said. “It’s really been fun.”
Salonga brings a wide and diverse catalog to the show. The setlist includes songs from her award-winning turns on stage in Miss Saigon.
She created the role of Kim in Miss Saigon on the West End in London which she then reprised on Broadway, becoming the first Asian actress to win a Tony Award. She also became the first Filipino to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The “Pride of the Philippines,” as she is sometimes called, said she hopes her career and the tour “inspires young people, young performers, young actors to hopefully want to do this, and they themselves will become symbols of pride for their communities.”
After success on stage in London and on Broadway, she turned to Disney, gaining acclaim for providing the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in Aladdin and Mulan in both Mulan movies.
One of Salonga’s big influences growing up was Karen Carpenter.
“She had this incredible, rich tone, this beautiful alto that could just make you cry, but it wasn’t just that. It was her diction, her storytelling and just the emotion in her voice. It’s all of that,” Salonga said. “There was this simplicity, but with a tone like hers, you didn’t really need to mess with anything too much, because it was already so, so rich and so beautiful.”
Salonga keeps a list of artists she would like to sing with, which includes another one of her music idols, Barbra Streisand, and V from the South Korean boy band BTS.
Recently, Salonga lent her voice for one song — actually one line in one song — as Celine in the Netflix megahit K-Pop Demon Hunters.
“So many young people are latching on to a story that uses K-pop as a springboard into a tale of self-acceptance and generational trauma and shame and redemption and love,” Salonga said. “There’s so much that every person from every culture can relate to, not just Asian culture.”
On her current tour — which continues in Florida, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore — the song that typically gets the warmest reaction is her signature song, “A Whole New World,” a staple at all of her concerts. It became the first Disney film song to reach #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1993, knocking Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” from the top spot. The song won an Oscar, Golden Globe and two Grammys and has been streamed several billion times.
Sometimes, singers grow tired of singing their signature song they’ve sung hundreds and hundreds of times, but not so much for Salonga.
“For me, I’m very, very grateful that I auditioned for it and I got the job, and it’s been such a gift,” Salonga said of the song. “When I see little kids in concerts, and I see them mouthing the words to the songs that I’m singing. It’s like ‘oh, my gosh, I’ve actually made an impact on another human being in a significant way.’ … It’s always wonderful to sing.”
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