`Miss Saigon': It's personal.

Byline: Fred Crafts The Register-Guard

When Saigon-born pianist Kym Purling stands in the pit and conducts the musical ``Miss Saigon,'' his life flashes before his eyes.

``There are a lot of parallels between what may have happened in my early life and what goes on on stage,'' Purling, 31, says by phone from his parents' home in Adelaide, Australia, where he was vacationing recently.

Set in 1975 during the final days leading up to the American evacuation of Saigon, the musical (by the creators of ``Les Miserables'') focuses on two young lovers - an American man and a Vietnamese woman - who are pulled apart by circumstances yet held together by passion and a small child.

Purling says that child easily could have been him.

``I was found abandoned as child during the Vietnamese war when I was only 2 or 3 days old. I was found just outside of Saigon, apparently, and I never knew who my mother or father were.

``I went into two orphanages in Saigon until I was adopted by my south Australian parents."

In Australia, Purling grew up, studied music and eventually found his way into conducting the national touring company production of ``Miss Saigon.'' But that is getting ahead of the story.

Purling was barely alive when he was found and delivered to an orphanage in Saigon, given a Vietnamese name by the facility's director, and placed in a second orphanage run by World Vision (the New Life Babies Home).

In 1973, an Australian minister and his wife, David and Judith Purling, adopted him. He was 7 months old when he arrived Down Under to join the family's two biological daughters.

At the age of 5, Purling displayed keen musical talent by mimicking the material his eldest sister was practicing at the piano. The next year, he began formal classical training that lasted through high school, where he discovered jazz.

``My jazz studies teacher gave me a cassette tape with some different jazz pianists like Monty Alexander, George Shearing and Oscar Peterson, and I just loved the sound of it,'' Purling says. ``I really got bitten by the jazz bug then, and it never stopped.''

A multifaceted performer, Purling played trumpet and percussion instruments as well as piano. He began working semi-professionally during his teens and also taught privately and accompanied such national dance companies as Meryl Tankard's Australian Dance Theatre.

At the same time, Purling was developing an acting career. He had a major role in a documentary film and also acted in the feature film ``Sebastian and the Sparrow'' by filmmaker Scott Hicks (``Shine,'' ``Snow Falling on Cedars'').

In 1992, Purling earned a bachelor's degree in jazz studies at the University of Adelaide. Afterwards, he began performing as a jazz pianist in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne with his trio, which also served as a rhythm section for entertainers such as the Mills Brothers, Kay Starr, Buddy Greco, Julio Iglesias, Harry Connick Jr., There Might Be Giants, Sandra Bernhardt, James Morrison and Ray Brown.

Since 1994, he has recorded four best-selling compact discs under his own name and made numerous television and radio commercials. In 1996, he was named the most outstanding keyboard player of the year at the South Australian Music Industry Awards.

Purling turned down an offer to teach at the University of Adelaide when he was given a performing arts residency in Vietnam by Asialink, a Melbourne-based university and governmental ambassadorship program.

The move took him back to Vietnam for the first time since his birth.

``I went back through the files of one of the orphanages that I was in, but the Vietnamese name I had was given to me by the head directoress and manger of the orphanage, so it really didn't lead back to finding my parents.''

Nor, he adds, does he have a burning need to find them.

``I feel very Australian. I don't feel Vietnamese at all,'' he says. ``Your parents are the people who raised you. I had a wonderful upbringing in Australia.''

After Vietnam, Purling toured in Europe, where he performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival. He then moved to the United States to teach on the faculty and earn a master's degree at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

He spent two years performing in various Las Vegas venues before touring Scotland in 1999 to perform at the Edinburgh Festival.

The next year, Purling was back in Las Vegas, then Australia, then New York City, when he was appointed musical director and conductor for the 2000-01 tour of ``Footloose: The Musical.''

Since 2002, Purling has been pianist and musical director of the "Miss Saigon" tour. He will be leaving the show in mid-May to begin rehearsals for the ``42nd Street'' national tour.

During ``Miss Saigon's'' some 550 performances, he has often stood at his keyboards and compared his life with that of the child on stage.

``There are all these little things that run throughout the show that make me wonder. I've asked myself: What happened to my Vietnamese mother? What happened to my father? Where do I think they are? Are they alive? Am I happy to be where I am? Do I want to find them?''

Does he? Purling admits he's curious but not driven.

"I was plucked out of a war zone, taken to a great country to live and had a wonderful life full of opportunities," he says. ``I'm so grateful for that, because, having worked in Vietnam in 1996, I know I'm lucky to have had that opportunity. A lot of young people may not even know they are talented.''

Fred Crafts can be reached at 338-2575 or fcrafts@guardnet .com.

MUSICAL PREVIEW

Miss Saigon

What: Love blooms during the Vietnam War in the touring production of the hit musical

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday; and 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. May 2

Where: The Hult Center, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street

How much: $27.50 to $52.50, through the Hult Center box office 682-5000

CAPTION(S):

Kym Purling was delivered to a Saigon orphanage as an infant. For the touring show's music director, the Vietnam War tale makes him wonder about his past