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Victor
Salvi
The son of a successful Venetian lutist who moved to Viggiano, a small town in Basilicata famous for harp making, Victor Salvi was born in Chicago in 1920, where his father Rodolfo had emigrated in 1909 with his wife Apollonia. The youngest of four brothers, he was inspired to a musical career by his sister Aida who was harpist for the Chicago Opera and composer. His brother Alberto was described by the famous Nicanor Zabaleta as "the greatest harpist of all time". Having devoted himself to music as a career, Victor toured around the States with the St. Louis Chamber Ensemble and became the First Harp of the New York Philarmonic Orchestra and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of the great Arturo Toscanini and of other famous directors such as Szell, Monteux and Mitropoulos. With the help of some craftsmen he decided to try to make a harp better made and better sounding than any other before it, and he produced the first prototype: in 1954, in a small workshop in New York, the first Salvi harp was born.
In 1956 he left the States and moved to Italy, his country of origin. There he set up his company in a splendid site in Genoa, the sixteenth century Villa Maria, where he soon began to be patronised by harpists who had heard about a new and revolutionary harp. In 1974 the company moved to Piasco, in the Saluzzese, an area famous for its hand-crafted woodworking where he opened a factory in a former Wild cotton mill.
Today Victor Salvi č recognised and respected all over the world for these innovations and for the continuous support to harpists and their musical careers. He has received prestigious international recognition: in 1996 the World Harp Congress awarded him the Distinguished Award for Service to the International Harp Community and in 2004 he became an Honorary Member of the Royal College of Music in the presence of Prince Charles.
Victor Salvi married his wife Julia Salvi and they have four children : Marco, Nicoletta, Ana and Vittorio. Victor Salvi has brought together his family’s great love of the harp and the lute in his own work.
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