JoAnn Cerdenia is a harpist, composer, and pedagogue whose career spans artistic performance, academic research, and instrument accessibility. She holds a Diploma in Creative and Performing Musical Arts and a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of the Philippines, a degree in Harp Pedagogy from the prestigious Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf, Germany, and a Master of Music in Composition from the Australian Institute of Music (AIM) in Sydney, Australia.
Jo-Ann’s foundational training began at the University of the Philippines College of Music, where she pursued intensive composition training under the mentorship of prominent Filipino composers Christine Muyco, Josefino Toledo, and Dr. Jonas Baes.
Concurrently, she studied under Professor Lourdes De Leon Gregorio, the sole professional harp instructor in the Philippines at the time, who recognized her talent and mentored her as a personal scholar.
Seeking to expand her mastery, Jo-Ann relocated to Germany, mastering the language to gain admission to the Robert Schumann Hochschule. There, she specialized in performance under the renowned Italian harpist Fabiana Trani and pedagogy under Prof. Wolfgang Rüdiger. Her knowledge on harp playing techniques is backed by Master Classes with global icons including Alice Giles, Irina Zing, and Olga Shevelevich.
Returning to her home country, JoAnn and her husband Hans founded HarpRoom—the historic first and only dedicated harp institution in the Philippines. Driven by a mission to democratize an instrument historically gatekept by geographic and economic barriers, JoAnn spearheaded unprecedented logistics networks, physically flying harps to remote southern provinces to provide rural students with instrument access and world-class instruction.
To permanently bridge the structural supply gap in Southeast Asia, Jo-Ann forged a strategic, historic partnership with Camac Harps France, one of the world's premier harp manufacturers. Through this elite international collaboration, HarpRoom successfully established a pipeline to supply high-quality instruments directly to Filipino students, catalyzing the birth of a new national harp community.
When the global pandemic struck, Jo-Ann leveraged digital pedagogy to transition HarpRoom into a highly successful online academy. By adapting traditional physical techniques into an innovative virtual framework, she expanded her reach globally. She now trains and mentors a diverse international cohort of students logging in from different parts of the world—including the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia—guiding many to top honors in international music competitions and proving that geographic distance is no barrier to elite level instruction.
Now based in North Sydney, Australia, Jo-Ann operates a vibrant dual-delivery teaching studio, blending face-to-face instruction with her established global online network. Utilizing her extensive composition background, she provides a highly personalized curriculum that includes arranging bespoke, custom-tailored repertoire to meet the unique technical needs, skill levels, and musical goals of each individual student.
Alongside her teaching, her current work centers on a practice-led research cycle bridging contemporary composition and instrument engineering. She is actively composing a debut album of original works for voice and acoustic harp, while laying the groundwork for a doctoral project aimed at mechanically re-engineering the folk harp frame to achieve advanced chromatic agility.
Jo-Ann Cerdenia belongs to a very rare and small group of harp players in the Philippines. Even rarer, she is one of less-than-a-handful professionally-trained harp teachers in the country. She finished her studies in music composition at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and subsequently completed her harp studies at Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Her passion for the harp began at an early age when she saw a street harpist in her hometown in Cebu. Though she lacked the means to pursue the instrument, this early exposure to the harp was to stay and grow in her heart.
Upon college, she went to Manila to test her mettle at the University of the Philippines. While studying there, she came across Professor Lourdes De Leon Gregorio who, incidentally, was the only professional harp teacher in the Philippines at that time. The good professor took her under her wing as her personal scholar in learning the harp. For years, Jo-Ann had to commute from UP to CCP and back - up to four hours travelling time - just to have some practice time with the harp, as access to the instrument was extremely hard at that time.
As her passion and determination for the harp grew, she sought further studies in faraway lands. Several years after graduating from the UP College of Music, she studied the German language and became proficient enough to be able to go to Germany and enter one of the many wonderful conservatories in that country. After some time of searching, she was able to enter the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Dusseldorf where she studied under the wise instruction of Italian harpist Fabiana Trani. With teaching being her ultimate mission in life, she majored in harp pedagogy and was mentored by pedagogue Prof. Wolfgang Rüdiger. She also attended master classes with world-renowned harpists Alice Giles, Irina Zing, and Olga Shevelevich. Furthering her studies, she also received harp methodology instruction from harpists Hye-Young Kim and Susana Feige.
At a music festival in Frankfurt, she came accross harps made by Camac Harps France, one of the best harp makers in the world. Impressed with the quality and beauty of the instruments, she quickly struck a friendship with Camac's CEO, Jakez Francois. Upon returning to the Philippines after several years of hard work, she and her husband founded HarpRoom in Diliman, Quezon City with the mission of multiplying harpists and harp teachers in the country, and increasing the love and appreciation for the instrument. They began a partnership with Camac Harps France in order to make harps more accessible to anyone who wants to learn. After just one year of partnership, HarpRoom became the exclusive distributor of Camac Harps France in the Philippines and have increased the number of harp ownership and proficiency in the country.
Recently, she has fostered a special friendship with Katryna Tan, Singapore's finest harpist, who is also the founder of Rave Harps - the company behind the Singapore Harpfests. HarpRoom produced Katryna Tan's first-ever harp concerto in the country, co-presented by the Singapore Embassy in Manila, BDO, and Camac Harps France. The Philippines was also represented during the 6th Singapore Harpfest last September 2019, with HarpRoom sending young harpists from Metro Manila, Cebu, and Cagayan de Oro who won various competition awards - another unprecedented achievement for the Philippine harp community.
Jo-Ann Cerdenia's life journey thus far does prove that attaining one's dream is possible despite hardships and lack of opportunity. And that so long as you keep your trust in God, he will see you through.
