ROBERTO HERNANDEZ AT PALAU ROYAL RESORT
'If somebody requested me a song written on a piece of paper and I don't know yet the song, I will not throw away the paper. I will collect it and I will search for that song at National Bookstore. If I can't find it there, I will go to Raon, Quiapo Manila and I will ask the staff of music store to record those songs for me in cassette tape."
AMAZING PIANO MAN
(Report from Windson John Genova -- The International Filipino June 2012 Issue)
THERE MAY be KTV addicts who know how to sing 100 titles. But chances are they don’t know the complete lyrics of that many songs. And if lyrics are hard to memorize, what more remembering the tune and playing it with a musical instrument. Only the likes of virtuoso pianist Roberto Hernandez can play so many songs; close to 2,000 in fact.
No wonder Hernandez, 56, is the star piano man of Palau, a small island nation in the Pacific Ocean hosting some 5,000 OFWs. No musician in Palau or perhaps in the entire Oceania, comes close to matching his talent for playing the piano. And not all of the 2,000 songs in his repertoire are English or American titles.
“My repertoire is international also. I know more than 50 Japanese songs, 45 Palauan songs, 38 Spanish songs, 12 Italian songs, 30 Greek songs, 10 Chinese songs, 300 Filipino songs, 1,200 American songs, French, German, Korean, Chamorro, Hawaiian, Mexican, Israeli, etc,” reveals Hernandez, who plays regularly at Palau Royal Resort hotel.
His long list of tunes was the result of passion and dedication to music over the years plus utmost professionalism.
“If somebody requested me a song written on a piece of paper and I don’t know yet that song, I will not throw away the paper. I will collect it and I will search for that song at National Bookstore. If I can’t find it there, I’ll go to Raon in Quiapo, Manila and I will ask the staff of music store to record those songs for me in cassette tape,” recalls Hernandez.
The evolution of Hernandez, who is working in Palau for 20 years now, did not start with a piano. The Hagonoy, Bulacan native first learned to play guitar and marimba. When he worked at The Plaza Restaurant in Makati in the ‘70’s, he enrolled at the Yamaha School of Music. He eventually became the pianist of The Plaza Restaurant in 1980.
Hernandez went to Japan to play with the First Quarter Band in 1982. He came back as pianist at The Plaza’s Aling Asiang Specialty Restaurant before working in Bahrain as a keyboard player at Khayam Taverna, a Greek Restaurant, from 1987 to 1989. He played piano at Beverly Hills Deli in Greenbelt, Makati before working and settling in Palau in 1992.
In Palau, he started as keyboardist for a band before becoming solo pianist for different restaurants and cafeterias until he was hired at Palau Royal Resort in 2007.
I’m also teaching piano, keyboard, guitar to kids and adults,” he adds. Hernandez is the piano instructor of Palau President Johnson Toribiong’s grandson.
With his mastery of the instrument, he is also a piano tuner. He once fixed the piano of Palau’s traditional queen for free as a belated Christmas present.
In 2009, the Philippine Embassy in Koror led by Ambassador Ramoncito Marino honored outstanding OFWs in Palau, including Hernandez, during the celebration of the 111th anniversary of the Philippine Independence.
The award and certification he received was not only in recognition of his musical talent but for his promotion of chess in Palau. The musical genius is also a chess master with international rating. He is an official of the Palau Chess Federation and a member of Palau national team participating in the 2012 World Chess Olympiad happening on August 27 to September 10.
Hernandez and other Filipinos and locals regularly hold chess competitions in Palau. He even writes a chess and music columns in a Palauan newspaper.
Musician, piano teacher and tuner, chess master and journalist-writer. Also a loving husband to Flor, who has also been working in Palau the past 16 years. Indeed, Hernandez is very talented, an amazing Filipino we can be proud of.
Source: The International Filipino
Reporter -- Windsor John Genova
Superstart Column
Page 10
June 2012
Music and Me by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 8-9
Volume 21
Issue 40
Issue 40
June 21, 2012
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