Filipino American pianist and tenor Carlos Alberto Ibay counts his strong sense of hearing as one of his greatest skills, according to Phil Star.
He jokes he can hear the sound of peanuts cracking a mile away and says he can hear his mom unwrapping candy in their basement.
Ibay was born in Virginia prematurely and spent the first three months of his life in an incubator. He lost his eyesight due to oxygen deprivation.
The tenor got to sing before Pope Francis at the blessing of a mosaic image of Filipino Saint Pedro Calungsod in 2013.
His parents bought him his first Steinway Piano at the age of three “just to keep me from getting bored.”
He must have been pretty good because at age 16 his parents bought him a grand Steinway Piano “in place of a car, since he cannot drive anyway,” his mom said.
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He was mentored by Thomas Schumacher, a professor at the University of Maryland. Ibay calls his seven years with Schumacher “the best seven years of my piano education.”
You can read more about his career and accomplishments in Phil Star
