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[0:11] Robert Bannon: It's the round table with me, Robert Bannon. You know, Broadway World. I was gonna say she's like a national treasure here, but she's like a world treasure. And when I hear her sing, I just boohoo cry because I have so many memories. If it's the helicopter coming down over at the Broadway Miss Saigon, if it's Jasmine, if it's Mulan, if it's Here Lies Love, it's everything. She's a voice that has raised us theater kids out here. And her Christmas album, everybody is so absolutely stunning. Clay Aiken was here the other day, and I told Clay, you all better sing Lea Salonga and Clay Aiken are singing on the holiday album, Sounding Joy. Lea Salonga's here, and we are so honored to have her. Welcome to the round table.

[0:49] Lea Salonga: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here on this very gray day in New York City.

[0:51] Robert Bannon: It is a gray day, and you are going to be everywhere from the Thanksgiving Day parade on down singing holiday music. How's it feel to release this album?

[1:03] Lea Salonga: Oh my gosh, it feels well. Since we started recording this in 2020, and now it's 2024, and we've all been through the COVID pandemic, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and have emerged on the other side, hopefully not taking anything for granted. It feels actually much more joyful to be releasing it now versus if we were going to release it in 2020. I think it would have felt like a more normal holiday album that a lot of artists release at the end of the year. But because of what everybody went through, what everyone involved in the making of this album have been through in their own individual lives, it feels much more joyful to be releasing it. The joy is joying in this album. And I think that all of us feel a greater sense of holiday spirit, and also remembering who we have lost along the way in the pandemic and just in the last however many years since we started recording this.

So it feels incredible to be releasing this now, finally, after so many years of starting and then having to shelve it and then now getting to release it, getting to finish it and finally release it. It feels really good.

[2:54] Robert Bannon: Well, it's been on repeat in my house. Nobody has the pitch and control that you do. It's also recorded, so we didn't use any, we actually did not use any pitch correcting anything. As Gerard Salonga, who's my younger brother and one of our producers, he's like, "Yeah, you don't need it, so why are we gonna use it?"

[3:16] Lea Salonga: Well, that is words that have never been said to me. No one has ever said you don't need pitch corrector in the studio. If you want to see why she doesn't need pitch corrector, you can see her on tour. She's going to be doing a holiday tour. I'm sorry, San Francisco and New York, but the shows are sold out. But if you're in Arizona, San Diego, or Northridge, California, you can get a ticket. What is a live show going to be for the holiday? How do you pick what you're gonna sing for the holiday shows?

[3:40] Lea Salonga: Um, how do we pick what we're gonna sing? My hair's doing something janky at the moment.

[3:45] Robert Bannon: You look fantastic.

[3:47] Lea Salonga: Thank you, thank you. I think it's also the light coming in through the window of my apartment. I think we're doing most, if not all, of the songs on the album, and then some, and then some other holiday favorites, things that I've performed in holiday shows past that just felt right to include. I mean, there's this one Jonas Brothers song that I sang at a holiday show in Dubai in 2021. I enjoyed it so much, so I've asked to include it for this tour. It's jaunty, it's fun, it's very lively and it's light, and I just like the song so much. So stuff like that. A few other classic holiday favorites.

[4:53] Robert Bannon: I think a Jonas Brothers number is on brand because if we've been following your career and we remember this album, there's a big old boy band medley on there.

[5:00] Lea Salonga: So we should... I am so... What does it mean now? How did you pick these songs that are on the album?

[5:09] Lea Salonga: Um, well, I didn't get to pick them all. There were quite a few of us that decided on what the song list for the album was gonna be. For example, Josh Pults, who's one of the other producers, brought "River," and I had never heard it. I had never heard Joni Mitchell or Idina Menzel or any other artist that had recorded it in the past. So when I heard it, I was like, "Oh my god, we definitely absolutely need to have that on this album," because the holidays aren't always just tinsel and lights and get-togethers and food—so much food. Sometimes it's melancholy and loneliness and feelings of loss and isolation. So, you know, to lean into a melancholy holiday song makes a lot of sense because there are a lot of folks who understand only too well that sometimes the holidays bring emotions that aren't always so happy or so joyful.

So I love "River," and even "All I Want for Christmas Is You." We lean into how sad the song actually is. When we listen to other versions of the song that kind of have it beautifully produced, and when we hear the jingle bells in the background, but if you listen to those lyrics, it's not a happy song. So we really, yeah, when we were in the studio, and my brother was supervising those recordings, he was like, "No, really, really lean into, you know, read those lyrics, and you know, this is not Mariah. This is you interpreting this song." His directive was, "You make people cry for a living, so bring that into this." So I leaned into the sadder emotions that that song can contain.

[7:36] Robert Bannon: So, yeah. That's how I feel. You make me cry for a living, like your living makes me cry. I hear boo-hoo cry.

[7:43] Lea Salonga: Dying on stage, dying on stage eight times a week. It's how I became known on Broadway, in the first two Broadway shows I've ever done, namely Miss Saigon and Les Misérables.

[7:57] Robert Bannon: Gunshot dead.

[7:58] Lea Salonga: So, you know, I make light of it. But yeah, I died on stage for those shows. Well, what I loved about something like "All I Want for Christmas Is You" is your emotions and your voice, but then there are songs that I've never heard before that are on the album that are not necessarily classics to what I think of when I think of a Christmas number. And you have a song that I've been listening to over and over again, "Love Is Our Christmas Star," is one of the most—oh my goodness, the song is so beautiful.

[8:28] Lea Salonga: Isn't it so beautiful? Yeah, it's actually, given where I'm from, I'm from the Philippines. I definitely wanted to include something from a songwriter from home. Her name is Trina Belamide, and she has written quite a few hits, pop hits over at home. And this song came, and she, you know, she and I have been wanting to work together on something, but it just never happened, and now here it is, and so we have been sitting on that song for the last four years because that was one of the songs that was recorded before the lockdowns happened. So we've been sitting on that for four years. And you know, with each stage of recording and production, I would sort of let her listen to things, even if it wasn't mixed, and if we bump into each other and like, oh, listen to this, this is what we just got.

And um, so yeah, but now it's obviously very public, and everybody is getting to hear it and appreciate it. So I'm so glad that now she gets to be a part of something that I have released that we have actually gotten to work together on an original song, and um, that it's being loved and appreciated wherever folks are streaming and listening to it. Well, it's out, you know, the album is out what we're talking about. Spotify and Apple Music and wherever else, and you can also buy the physical album on Amazon and order it from center stage, and yes, Leasalonga.com, and we will lead you to Sounding Joy. And there's I think also like a limited copy of autographed CDs. So yeah. So they did such a beautiful job, everybody over at Center Stage from Robbie to everybody that builds these albums and makes the designs them, they do such a beautiful job.

[10:20] Robert Bannon: And you talk about a song that's perfect for you theater fans out there like me, who have been adoring Lea Salonga. You Christmas on Broadway is another song.

[10:28] Lea Salonga: Yes.

[10:29] Robert Bannon: Where did you find it? What made you record? I know why you recorded, it's perfect.

[10:34] Lea Salonga: Yeah, it makes absolute sense given what I do for a living with dying on stage eight times a week. Um, but but seriously, actually, the song was written by Daniel Edmonds, who is currently the music director over at the Great Gatsby at the Broadway Theater. So a little shout out to him. And he and I had worked together quite a bit in Australia, which is where we met. So he was playing piano for my concerts whenever I would concertize in Australia. So he is a friend of all three of us who produced the album. He's a friend of Gerard's, he's a friend of Josh's. And um, so we solicited, I believe. I'm sure that we asked if he was gonna write us if he would write a song. And here came Christmas on Broadway.

Um, and he, I think by that time, he was already music directing for a lot of the Broadway musicals that had arrived in Australia. I know that when there was one year when we worked together, he was the musical director of Beautiful, the Australian production of it. So this guy has chops and talent and really knows his stuff and is, you know, musical, it is definitely a musical theater guy. So he wrote this song, and it was like, okay, yeah, we have to include it. It's gorgeous. And it kind of makes sense now that he's an act, he's actually a Broadway musical director, and he was also, I think, uh Jason Howland's associate on Shuft. So this is not his first Broadway rodeo. So it actually, it's so fitting that this guy who's now actually a musical director and a force to reckon with on Broadway has contributed a tune.

And after we recorded Christmas on Broadway, we worked together on a single that was recorded with the pandemic in mind called Dream Again. Um, the lyrics were by Blair Bodine. Um, and we sang it with the hope that we would come out of this on the other side and be able to do the things that we love to do, as in for real.

[12:54] Robert Bannon: You know, it's amazing to me because we had the chance, you were in the Philippines and we had the chance to speak when you released that live album during where we were on a show called Quarantine Cabaret and Cocktails, and we got to speak about it. And you were we were talking about praying to get out and praying about getting together and praying to be able to be together once again. And now these holidays and family takes on such a different meaning in this time.

[13:14] Lea Salonga: Yes, actually. You travel a lot from your home. You're in the US, you were just in the UK, you tour around this world. I'm sure that when you think of the holidays and putting out an album like this, it has to bring back a lot of memories, a lot of time to be home. What do you think of now when you put this out? How are you gonna be celebrating your holidays this year?

[13:33] Lea Salonga: Oh, uh, it's kind of like back to normal. Um, actually, our holidays pretty much returned to what they've always been since I guess 2021, 2022. Um, where we would get together at my mother's house and just eat ourselves into a stupor. Same, you know, and that would be it, where you know, Nick and the cousins, they would all get together. Um, and just hang out, and now they're all teenagers. So I guess it's a little different, but the three of them have thankfully remained really, really close. Um, and they the three of them were all together in the UK while I was touring. The three of them were gallivanting and adventuring and you know, taking trains with my sister-in-law, and just being able to do their own little thing around the UK.

So yeah, so that is what the plan is. Um, yes, I have the now very much sold-out concert at Town Hall on the 20th. Yeah, and then off we go to the Philippines for a holiday with my mom and my brother, and I think there's supposed to be some sort of culinary class war happening in my kitchen in my house. So there's supposed to be some sort of showdown between my a couple of my friends, and then the rest of us get to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and um eat again ourselves into a stupor with alcohol. So I guess we're just yeah, so I mean, I've got my holiday pretty much planned. My kitchen was just renovated, and I've had pictures coming out on Instagram, and I'm just so happy with it all. So, yeah, I'm just having friends over, and they're gonna cook and you know, break in the appliances, and yeah, we're just all gonna have a good time.

That's that's yeah, and this is the same group of friends that would we would get together on Zoom over the pandemic and just shoot the breeze and drink together and laugh and play games, and we kept ourselves from going insane during the pandemic. So I value this group of people so much. Um, so yeah, we're all gonna get together in person. I mean, we've gotten together in person quite a few times already. So this won't be the first time, but whenever we do get together, it's pretty amazing.

[16:08] Robert Bannon: Well, you'll be a part of our holiday, and we're so grateful to spend time with you. We adore you. The album is out, everybody. You can get it at Sounding Joy the holiday album. Go to Leasalonga.com, stream it wherever you hear music. Lea Salonga, you're welcome here anytime. You give us some.

[16:21] Lea Salonga: Thank you.

[16:22] Robert Bannon: We can't wait to see you back on Broadway in the new year.

[16:25] Lea Salonga: And yes, an old friends in March, it starts.

[16:28] Robert Bannon: Oh my gosh. Awesome.

[16:33] Lea Salonga: Thank you for Merry Christmas.

[16:35] Robert Bannon: Thank you for being here. You're the best.

[16:37] Lea Salonga: Thank you so much for having me.