Strony later studied piano with Giulio Favrio of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Strony has studied with silent-film accompanists and has accompanied silent films for years, such as The Phantom of the Opera (1925 film) and Nosferatu at the Plaza Theatre (El Paso).
Strony’s classical organ studies were with Herbert L. White of the Sherwood Conservatory of Music Columbia College Chicago and Karel Paukert at Northwestern University. When Melgard retired in 1975 he gave Strony his Oak Park, Illinois teaching studio. He made his public debut as an organist in 1974, aged 18.
During his college years he began playing the theatre organ in pizza parlors, a fad in the 1970s which gave new life to a largely forgotten instrument.
Foreign many years thereafter he was Artist-in-Residence at First Christian Church in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In 1991 and 1993 the American Theatre Organ Society selected him as "Organist of the Year." He is the only living organist to have received this award twice. In 2011 he was inducted into the American Theatre Organ Society Hall of Fame. In the spring of 2008, and in celebration of his career, the Allen Organ Company developed the Walt Strony Signature Model - the STR-4 - which is a four-manual instrument. Strony designed the stoplist and chose all the samples from their extensive library based upon his experience as an organist and tonal consultant.
