Dorothy Jeanne Thompson, better known as Dorothy Ashby, was an American jazz harpist and composer. Hailed as one of the most "unjustly under loved jazz greats of the 1950s" and the "most accomplished modern jazz harpist," Ashby established the harp as an improvising jazz instrument, beyond earlier use as a novelty or background orchestral instrument, proving the harp could play bebop as adeptly as the instruments commonly associated with jazz, such as the saxophone or piano.
Caroline Léonardelli is a French-Canadian concert harpist. Born in France, she graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris at age of 18 and came to Canada to study at McGill University where she completed an Artist Diploma. Based in Canada's National Capital Region, she performs for CBC national broadcasts and for Radio Canada. Her recordings are featured by Apple Music in the top ten playlist of master harp recordings and her recording label is distributed worldwide by NAXOS. She is the Principal Harpist with the Ottawa Symphony and Orchestre symphonique de Gatineau.
Liao Zilan is an international concert circuit performer on the guzheng. She has performed at the Royal Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall, and has toured internationally. She also participated at the WOMAD Recording Week in Bath, Somerset.
Gourd Music is a record label featuring acoustic instrumental music with various ensembles of guitar, cello, flute, oboe, harp, fiddle, hammered and mountain dulcimer, banjo and mandolin.
The triple harp is a type of multi-course harp employing three parallel rows of strings instead of the more common single row. One common version is the Welsh triple harp, used today mainly among players of traditional Welsh folk music.
The pedal harp is a large and technically modern harp, designed primarily for art music and may be played either solo, as part of a chamber ensemble, or in an orchestra. It typically has a range of six and a half octaves, weighs about 36 kilograms (80 lb), is about 1.85 metres high, has a depth of 1 metre, and is 55 centimetres wide at the bass end of the soundboard. The notes range from the C♭ three octaves below middle C to three and a half octaves above, usually ending on G♭. Using octave designations, the range is C♭1 to G♭7. At least one manufacturer gives the harp a 48th string, a high A♭ giving the instrument a range of C♭1 to A♯7.
Ann Hobson Pilot is an American musician and the former principal harpist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops. She has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and as a soloist with many orchestras in the United States. She was one of four African American musicians who were the first to play in United States symphony orchestras during the 1960s.
Sylvia Woods is an American harpist and composer perhaps best known for her role in the worldwide renaissance of the Celtic harp, or cláirseach. Woods began selling and writing music for Celtic harps in the 1970s, when the instrument was not widely known in the United States, contributing to a groundswell of interest in the Celtic harp and music. Woods was named one of the “most influential harp forces of the twentieth century” by HarpColumn magazine.
Kate Targett-Adams is a singer, songwriter, MC and Celtic harpist. She has released 6 albums and has enjoyed most success singing in Chinese in China.
Skaila Kanga is a harpist and is Head of Harp Studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London, England. After winning a Junior Exhibition to the Royal Academy of Music for piano, she switched to harp studies at age 17. She studied with Tina Bonifacio, Sir Thomas Beecham's harpist in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Cécile Corbel is a French and Breton singer, harpist, and composer. She has released five albums of original music and worked for Studio Ghibli as a composer for its 2010 film, The Borrower Arrietty. Corbel sings in many languages including French, Italian, Breton, and English and has done songs in German, Spanish, Irish, Turkish, and Japanese. Her lifelong partner is songwriter Simon Caby, who is also her co-composer.
Erin Hill is an American harpist, singer, songwriter and actress. Her Celtic album hit #1 on the Billboard World Music Chart and she has played and sung with Kanye West, Cyndi Lauper, moby, Sinead O’Connor, Enya, a-ha, Randy Newman, Jewel, Josh Groban, and for many celebrities, as well as Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and for royalty.
Victoria Jordanova, born Viktorija (Vita) Pop Jordanova in Serbia in 1952, is a composer/performer and media artist. She is the creative director, curator, producer and the sound editor for ArpaViva label she founded in 2003.
Stephanie Bennett is a harpist, composer, arranger and vocalist who lives in Los Angeles. She plays popular music, jazz, and other contemporary music genres.
Maria Clotilde Belo de Carvalho Rosa Franco, known as Clotilde Rosa, was a Portuguese harpist, music educator and composer.
Brandee Younger is an American harpist. Younger infuses classical, jazz, soul and funk influences to the harp tradition pioneered by her predecessors and idols Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. The harpist leads her own ensemble, performs as a soloist and has worked as a sideman for such musicians as Pharoah Sanders, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, Bill Lee and Reggie Workman, and other popular artists including Lauryn Hill, John Legend, Common, Ryan Leslie, Drake, Maxwell, Moses Sumney and Salaam Remi. Younger is noted for her work with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, who was featured on her latest release, Soul Awakening. Currently, she actively records and tours with Makaya McCraven, following the release of his 2018 recording Universal Beings.
Claire Jones is a Welsh harpist who held the title of Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales from 2007 to 2011.
Franziska Huhn is a German harpist. Currently, she lives in the United States.
Tara McNeill is an Irish violinist, harpist, and soprano singer from Antrim, Northern Ireland. She was born on 27 July.
