“NO one can tell you what you really hear when you dream music. The impression can seem more vivid than music, as if coming from somewhere inside it. But the stuff of dreams is more rarefied than the stuff of music. The vibrations are finer, more like feeling than sound, more like the inhalation of a poet before she speaks a line than the spoken line itself. Just as dream light is soaked up in the light of day…” —W.A. Mathieu, The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music, 1991.
Los Angeles. London. Paris. Lucerne. New York. Chicago. Washington, DC. St. Louis. Switzerland. Germany. Austria. France. Singapore. Italy. Spain. Philippines. Leyte. Bacolod. More than 118 productions showcasing Sal Malaki as tenor in LA Opera. More than 150 productions with LA Master Chorale.
Placido Domingo, General Director of LA Opera Company. Grant Gershon, Artistic Director of LA Master Chorale. Zubin Mehta, Essa Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel of LA Philharmonic. Anna Etsuko Tsuri. Ryan Cayabyab. Dr. Charito Pizarro of University of Heidelberg. Sir Simon Rattle. Felix Slatkin. Dr. Beaunoni Espina. Rolando Tinio. Jaacov Bergman. These are some of the music personalities he has worked with.
Noli Me Tangere. Il Postino. The Gospel According to the Other Mary. The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. La Traviata. Madama Butterfly. La Boheme. Fantastic Mr. Fox. La Rondine. The Messiah. Hymnus Amoris. L’Extase. La Loba Negra. Lt. Cable. Spoliarium. Mga Sining Awit. South Pacific are some of the opera productions he has starred in, where every word was sung with heartfelt emotions and warm vocal tones. No lyrics are lost when Sal Malaki sings. His voice resonates to center stages around the world, beyond his birthplace, Hinunangan, Southern Leyte.
Years ago, I watched Sal perform in the UP Madrigal Singers Concert at the Ford Amphitheater for their 50th year anniversary, produced by Annie Nepomuceno. His performance is still seared in my memory. He looked up, as if summoning the angels from above, and then, with a commanding tone, he sang the opening chords of “Nessun Dorma” from the opera Turandot by Puccini.
With hand gestures from his heart, then, with outstretched hands, his singing moved me to tears, and it felt like I was much closer to the Higher Being, and in gratitude and awe, I appreciated his performance. His voice reached a summit.
When Sal Malaki is onstage, his self-confidence strikes you and does not leave you.
Sal Malaki’s voice was nurtured by family and a village’s church choir
His full name is Salmy Neo Dadap Malaki. Malaki in Tagalog means big, quite fitting for a voice so huge.
He is one of seven siblings, born to Lumy Amper Dadap and Samuel Donayre Malaki. His father was a Math teacher and his mother was an English and Music teacher.
His childhood mainstays were swimming and fishing at the lapjahan, the groin along the coast, while in some areas were golden and creamy sand beaches. With smiles, he recalls bountiful bugaong (white flat fish or terapon) caught at sea. Growing up with everyday views of verdant mountains and inviting waterfalls, one can easily dream big without constraints. At the top of the city are religious shrines where the Virgin Mary statue stands the tallest over the rooflines and is believed to watch over the residents.
At 6 and 7 years old, he became part of Hinunangan (Southern Leyte) Church’s children’s choir. His aunt, Feri Dadap, was the music director. Saturday afternoons were spent cleaning the church to get ready for Sundays, when he and his cousins did worship music.
“I never thought that would be my foundation of being a classical singer in Los Angeles,” he shared with a grateful tone.
In 3rd year high school, Hilltop Concert Chorale recruited him. Noni Espina of Silliman University in Dumaguete wrote an opera called “The Legend of the Bakunawa.” Damiana Eugenio, known folklorist, described Bakunawa as the moon eating dragon of Philippine mythology, while the Aswang Project wrote “that [it is about] a monstrous dragon [which] attempted to swallow the moon.”
Ten young flutists were recruited to play the flauta, while others were asked to play kolitong, “a bamboo polychordal tube zither with six strings that run parallel to its tube body,” Wikipedia described. “The flute had indigenous sounds, not based on do re mi, but pentatonic, and I had to find the sounds that the playwright Espina wanted to hear. We were three actors and I became the soloist,” Sal said, “conducted by Mrs. Norma Palermo Espina.”
Sal relates that at first, no one could bring out the requisite sounds, “Suwajan na ho,” (I will try), he said. When he covered the six holes properly with his fingers and blew across the “embouchure” of the bamboo flute located closest to the node, vibrant sounds of the flute were heard.
“I was discovered,” he said. Opera practice took hours after school till 10 pm. Days that he used for swimming, fishing and to help his father were now for music, “I not only played the flute, I also sang solo as the tenor.”
To help with his school expenses, he worked as a church janitor in his 3rd and 4th year high school. He graduated as the College of Maasin’s high school valedictorian. He was good in math and physics and took the UP’s entrance exam. He was assigned to UP Tacloban, where he spent two years taking general courses.
He was then diverted to take up accounting so he can join his uncle who worked at Price Waterhouse. He took a semester of accounting courses at the University of the East, but his interest could not be sustained. Music was calling him.
While in college, he remained active in a church choir at Ellinwood-Malate Church. He was dedicated and participated regularly in Sunday’s worship music. Pastor Cirilo Rigos noticed his commitment to music and gave him scholarship to train under Rolly Ramas, a voice teacher and a soprano, Jenny Lumawag.
He then auditioned for the UP College of Music. He taught at the extension program in UP College of Music, while finishing his Bachelor’s. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree with two majors: voice and a teacher’s diploma in flute.
He auditioned with Andrea Veneracion of the UP Madrigal Singers. He toured with the Madrigal in 1979 to Seoul, Korea to the 6th Asian Composers League and was invited to sing and to play “Salidunmay” on the bamboo flute. He toured Europe for five months, including Korea and Taiwan in 1981 and in 1987, Europe for seven months. The tour became his outside classroom, broadening his perspective while immersing in cultures. It taught him that while Southern Leyte became the birthplace of his musicality, he has the potential of going beyond his country’s borders and to take his talent globally.
By 1992, he performed in La Boheme, an opera at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, under the direction of Rolando Tinio and conducted by Jaacov Bergman. He described the context of that period. Three weeks before curtain, the Tagalog translations were made available. It spoke of the young lives of bohemian students in Paris but the setting of the opera is in the university belt in Manila. Pinatubo has just erupted. Everything had to be integrated into a Pilipino setting. And, he sang in Italian. His performance was warmly received and led to folks suggesting he goes abroad for exposure.
How do we fully develop this talent, the inquiry was made?
He got a multiple entry visa a year after he got married. He immigrated with his wife, Lynn Alcaraz Malaki who was then a bank officer. Sal at that time was teaching at St. Scholastica’s, UP and at the Ryan Cayabyab Music School. Their first stop was Chicago, Detroit, NY to Toronto and last stop was Los Angeles. It was 1992 recession.
Then, the Northridge earthquake happened on January 17, 1994, the day Sal was scheduled to audition for LA Master Chorale. They ended up staying in the Bay Area.
On Jan. 24, 1994, at the invitation of Henry and Monica Chen, they stayed with them. He took real estate and got sponsored for his visa.
He auditioned with Paul Salamunovich, Music Director of LA Master Chorale and sang “Che Gelida manina” from the opera La Boheme by Puccini. Sal recalls Topper Smith (Chorus Administrator of LA Opera Company) saying, “Oh my gosh, I haven’t heard that song sang that good in a long time.” Sal elicited “some applause from some singers who were lined up outside the audition room waiting for their turn to sing.”
Two weeks after the audition, he was tested again to sing in Latin, French, German and Italian as well as sight reading, aka solfeggio and vocal strength. He also sang “Still Wie Die Nacht” by Carl Bohm and had to sing it as if delivering poetry, creating images using words with flowing and beautiful lyricism. The LA Master Chorale had 75 paid slots and added him in the paid roster, making it 76 paid positions.
He credits the UP Madrigal Singers for his training, exposures to diverse languages, exposures to different cultures but also his mother and his aunt. He also credits UP College of Music for his rigorous academic training in sight reading as well as knowledge of being able to read and to write three European languages.
Every two years, he auditions with LA Opera and LA Master Chorale to assure these chorale groups that his attitude remains professional and his vocal instrument is up to par.
To perform in world-class stages is a feat in itself. To perform before thousands is another. But to be written up with accolades by a prestigious newspaper like Washington Post is the ultimate validation.
The Washington Post raved about “Noli Me Tangere,” an opera Sal Malaki starred in: “Playing the hero Crisostomo Ibarra, Sal Malaki and his golden tenor anchored the opera, and his expressive singing sent it soaring. As his faithful betrothed, Maria Clara, soprano Brittany Palmer performed with vocal subtlety and fragile stage presence befitting a tragic heroine.”
He nurtured a robust dream from the Philippines, which took him to Los Angeles to Europe, Southeast Asia, and come December 2016, back to the Philippines. He will hold a series of concerts: Dec. 14 and 15 with Children’s Choir in Tagbilaran, Bohol; Dec. 17 in Cebu with Mandaue Children’s Choir, conducted by Dennis Sugarol; Dec. 21 to support a dormitory project’s fundraising in UCCP, Maasin City in Leyte and Dec. 27 to support the fundraising for a local community hospital in Bacolod and to honor Nolin Cabahug, a tenor who starred in Traviata.
My dream, he said in Tagalog, “Hanggang nandito pa ang aking hiyas at talento, though travel is very taxing physically and mentally, lalo na sa atin, basta share ng share.” [While I still have my jewels and talents, though travel can be very taxing physically and mentally, especially in the Philippines, just want to share and share.]
Sal Malaki’s prowess belongs to the big league singers, the likes of Andrea Bocelli and Placido Domingo, and I pray that one day, a CD bearing his name, goes viral.
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Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for AJ Press for 9 years now. She contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, Japan, Mexico and 22 national parks in the US, in pursuit of her love for arts.