47th International Bamboo Organ Festival Online
Armando Salarza, Organ
Professor Armando V. Salarza is an international concert organist and has been the titular organist of the Bamboo Organ in his hometown, Las Piñas, Philippines, for 28 years. In 1992, he finished his post graduate studies of Organ Concert Performance under (+) Prof. Herbert Tachezi at the University for Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria after having earned with distinction an M.A. in Church Music and a Teacher’s Certificate at the University for Music and the Performing Arts in Graz, Austria. A lot of his success in his studies is credited to (+) Dr. Prof. Johann Trummer. Prof. Salarza is currently the Artistic Director of the International Bamboo Organ Festival. His contribution to the Festival is hard to describe, but one thing is for sure, the Festival would never have reached the standards of music making without his exceptional skills as a performer and accompanist. Admirable is the fact that he stayed in the Philippines, knowing that it would have been much easier for him to build up a career abroad. Though he did not specialize in choir conducting, he took over the position of choirmaster of the Las Piñas Boys Choir and dealt with their voices with the same precision as if dealing with the keyboard of the organ. Under his tutelage, the choir captured the first place in an international choir competition in Graz in 2008 and the choir has participated in many important events in the country such as ASEAN50, APEC, etc. As a concert organist, he has given numerous performances in the Philippines and abroad with the most recent ones in Cebu, Dumaguete and Russia. As a professor, he has taught, encouraged and supported many students in building up their career as musicians. Prof. Salarza is also presently a faculty member of the St. Scholastica’s College Conservatory of Music and of the University of the Philippines College of Music where he is teaching pipe organ. With enormous patience, he keeps on working for the future, never losing faith in the bright future which is entrusted in the hands of a few. He is driven by the love for the pipe organ which he started discovering at age 11 when he gave his first public performance on the Bamboo Organ. Together with the honor of being entrusted with the Bamboo Organ and the boys choir comes the task of making them sound their best so that Filipinos can feel proud of their heritage.