Dr. Oliver Salonga, pianist

Hailed as a natural pianist combining great emotional energy, musical refinement, and fierce technical prowess by music critics and musicians, Dr. Oliver Salonga is one of the leading Filipino pianists in the Philippine classical music scene both in performance and pedagogy. Internationally, he has performed in the most prestigious concert halls around the world such as Carnegie Hall, Brahmsaal of Austria, Esplanade of Singapore, Cultural Center of the Philippines and the Sydney Opera House of Australia.  He has also given concerts in Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China.

As an avid chamber musician, he is the pianist of Yulanhua Trio and Duo Bravura. Both chamber groups aim to bring classical music to more intimate performance spaces and to a wider audience. Salonga is an exclusive artist under the KNS Classical and he will be releasing three recording projects this year: “Russian Pictures”, “Colossos”, and “Fantasias”.

Salonga is the Gold Medal winner of the 2008 Jeonju International Piano Competition in South Korea. He has also won the Zellen Piano Prize at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the prestigious Savarick Prize at Florida Artist Guild Competition. He also won First prizes at the National Music Competition for Young Artists (NAMCYA) in 1998 and 2001 under the guidance of Prof. Carmencita Arambulo.

Oliver Salonga received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance with minors in Theory and Analysis, Arts Management, and Collaborative Arts from the University of Southern California and his Artist Diploma and Masters degree in Piano Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has received guidance from outstanding pianists Antonio Pompabaldi, Sergei Babayan, Norman Krieger, and Roberta Rust.

He is currently a professor at the Piano Conservatory of European Academy of Fine Arts Piano Conservatory and at the University of Santo Tomas. He is also the Artistic Director of Opus Artis Institute of Music, Palmarius Pianists, and the Benavides International Piano Festival and Competition. 

His students have won first prizes in various international competitions and have been admitted to some of the finest musical institutions such as the Juilliard School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, Hannover Hochschule, Tokyo College of Music and Interlochen Arts Academy.