How it began
The organ was built by Fray Diego Cera, a Spanish missionary from Graus in Huesca who lived in Las Piñas from 1795 to 1830 and was its first parish priest. According to the City of Las Piñas, he began construction in 1816 and finished eight years later, in 1824. The instrument stands in St. Joseph Parish Church, an adobe stone church built between 1797 and 1819 about ten kilometers south of central Manila.
How it works
The instrument is a pipe organ with 1,031 pipes. Of these, 902 are made of bamboo and the remaining 129 of metal. The National Museum of the Philippines recognized it as the only 19th-century bamboo organ in the country that has survived and still functions.
Who pushed back
In the 1880s a typhoon and an earthquake damaged the roof of the church and left the organ open to the weather. Rainwater and stones got inside the case, and the instrument became unplayable for years. The pipes were stored in the old sacristy and forgotten until about 1917, when a tourist drew attention to it again.
What lasted
A restoration project began in 1972. The contract went to the German firm Johannes Klais Orgelbau, and the organ was shipped to Bonn in 1973 and returned in 1975. The church was renovated from 1971 to 1975 under the architects Francisco Manosa and Ludwig Alvarez. Since the restoration, an International Bamboo Organ Festival has been held every February, and a foundation tied to the organ has sent music scholars to Austria.
Where it stands today
On November 24, 2003 the National Museum of the Philippines declared the Bamboo Organ a National Cultural Treasure. It remains in use at St. Joseph Parish Church, where the Bamboo Organ Foundation has its museum and souvenir shop in the former Spanish convent beside the church.
