Aug 13: Meet the Gaelic Harp & Its Family with Ann Heymann

6:30pm – 8:30pm

Dusty Strings 3406 Fremont Ave N

Maximum Enrollment: 16

Registration & Refund Deadline: Friday, August 8, 2025

The Gaelic harp aka Cláirseach is depicted on every Irish coin—but some two hundred years ago its famous resonant voice faded. Ann Heymann became the first “modern” to apply rigorous performance practice research, and Cumunn na Clarsaich has called Ann “the pioneer who brought the Gaelic harp back to a living tradition.” This presentation/demonstration will investigate the instrument’s origins, mythology and musical traditions that include the instrument’s role in the performance of Bardic poetry — whilst exploring parallels to its cousin, the Welsh bray harp, both of which are forerunners to the modern Celtic harp tradition. It will end with the big question “Where do these harps fit in today?”.

What to Bring: An interest in the harps of Ireland, Scotland and Wales; their origins and performance practice, and a willingness to participate in the journey.

Teacher: Ann Heymann is a master in the performance and traditions of the cláirseach, a metal strung instrument also known as Gaelic or Early Irish harp. She partners with husband Charlie in concerts and festivals throughout the United States, Europe and Australia, and has also performed with such luminaries as the Chieftains, Altan, the Rose Ensemble, harpers Alison Kinnaird and Siobhán Armstrong, pipers Alan MacDonald and Barnaby Brown, singers Lilis O'Laoire, Talitha MacKenzie and Margaret Stewart, ancient horn player Simon O'Dwyer, and was a featured soloist in Janet Harbison's "Lion of Ireland” and in the opening concert of the 2014 World Harp Congress in Sydney, Australia.

Ann has served many years on the faculty of the Historical Harp Society of Ireland's Scoil na gCláirseach and the Ohio Scottish Arts School at Oberlin College, USA. Seminar lecture venues include NUI Galway, University of Edinburgh, University of Limerick, Dundalk Institute of Technology, University of Melbourn and Harvard University.

Ann authored the instrument's first tutor, Secrets of the Gaelic Harp (1989), and has published in Éire-Ireland, The Companion to Traditional Irish Music (Cork University Press, 1999), and elsewhere. Her definitive solo cds Queen of Harps and Cruit go nÓr, document the virtuosic capability of the Gaelic harp, and in 2012 she was awarded a Moore Institute Fellowship at NUI Galway with Charlie to research “The Role of the Cláirseach in the Performance of Bardic Poetry”. In 2021 Ann was awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards by both the Historical Harp Society of Ireland and the Somerset Folk Harp Festival.

If you have any questions about group classes, or the school in general, don’t hesitate to contact us at (206) 634-1662 or music@dustystrings.com.